“But the picnic and the _bal costumé,_ Harry, dearest, do not come off till the day after that; and Madame de Beauville has just sent me tickets for them both!” urged his wife, timidly. “I’m sorry, my love, that it should have happened so, but go we must,” was the unyielding reply. “But Madame de Beauville has taken so much trouble, and been so kind,” murmured Alice. “The devil fly away with the old hag and her kindness too!” was the angry rejoinder. “I wish to heaven she’d attend to her own affairs, and not try to inspire you with a taste for dissipation. However, there is a quiet way of settling this question: if you choose to stay and go to this party, stay; and when I’ve been to Coverdale, and settled scores with that rascal Cribbins, I’ll come back and fetch you; so please yourself.” Poor Alice! this was her first experience of Harry’s “quiet way;” the implied indifference was more than she could bear, and murmuring, in a broken voice, “Do you wish to leave me already!” she burst into a flood of tears. Of course, that settled the question. Harry called himself a brute, and thought he was one, and felt as if he could have cried too, when he saw the bright drops glistening in Alice’s soft, loving eyes, and so set himself to work in earnest to console her; and succeeded to such an extent that ere a quarter of an hour had elapsed, Alice pronounced herself to be a silly child, and wondered how she could have been so foolish as to cry because Harry, the kindest and most affectionate of husbands, had evinced his just indignation on learning how the miscreant Cribbins had tyrannized over the faithful and unfortunate Markum, and his dear little interesting, curly-pated family. Then, as a personal favour to herself, she begged Harry would let her give up the picnic, and start for England next morning; she would be quite ready to go at five A.M., or earlier, if he wished it. To which Harry replied that nothing should induce him to deprive her of a pleasure he knew she had set her heart on; that a French picnic and _bal costumé_ were things she could never see in England, and that as they _were_ there it would be really a pity not to avail themselves of so good an opportunity; and he begged she would instantly sit town and write his thanks, as well as her own, to that thoroughly friendly, kind-hearted woman, Madame de Beauville. While Alice was thus engaged, Harry took pen in hand, and dashed off a hurried epistle to Arthur, begging him to run down to Coverdale Park by the next train, and in his name cashier Cribbins, and re-instate the ill-used Markum and his much-enduring wife, if possible, before the arrival of the expected little stranger should add another small item to his embarrassments.