the old sofa, in the old obscurity of the boudoir, without the old heart. She has even, contrary to his advice, and very much against his wishes, insisted on coming to tea with him in his rooms in Bury Street; and, as a matter of course, has expected him to see her off at Paddington. But on the whole he feels, as he speeds back in a hansom--this last duty punctually done--drawing an unintentional sigh of relief as he does so, that he has got through it pretty well. He has provoked not much anger, and, thank God, no tears. Thank God a hundred times more, too, that he has been miraculously spared any fleers at that other woman, towards whom, perhaps, the completeness of his lady's victory may have rendered her magnanimous. And that other woman! Well, he lets her image tease him as little as he can help it. Whether that is much or little, he himself scarcely knows. Sometimes again he does know, knows that it is infinitely much. But that is only now and then, when some trifling accident has given him a tiny momentary glimpse, such as outsiders often catch, at some keen happiness _à deux_; some two happy souls together blent, 'As the rose Blendeth in odour with the violet; Solution sweet.' Then, indeed, he catches his breath with the sharpness of the pain that runs through his lonely heart, saying to himself, before his will can arrest and strangle the lovely, useless thought, 'That might have been Peggy and I.' But this, as I have said, is only now and again. As a matter of fact, his life is too full of genuine continuous hard work, too throbbing with great excitements, too full of the large fever of to-day's hot politics, to have much space for the cherishing of any merely personal ache. Sometimes for a whole day together he keeps his heart's door triumphantly barred against her. For a day--yes; but at night, willy-nilly, she lifts the latch, and cool and tall walks in. In the night she has her revenge. In the day he may think of nations clashing, of party invectives, of discordant Cabinets, and Utopian Reforms; but at night he thinks of Mink, and of the little finches swinging and twittering on _his_ ladder; of the mowing-machine's whir, and the pallid sweet lavender bush. As the winter nears, and such considerable and growing portion of the world as spend some part at least of the cold season in London, refill their houses, he goes a good deal into society, and when there he seems to enjoy himself. How can each woman to whom he offers his pleasant, easy civilities know that he is saying to his own heart as he looks at her: 'Your skin is not nearly so fine grained as Peggy's; your ear is double the size of hers; your smile comes twice as often, but it is not nearly so worth having when it does come'?