Still, though too late for confidence, there was perfect peace between mother and son; undisturbed even by the continued presence of through the winter of Florence Vyse, who had taken it into her head that the éclat of her marriage would be much increased by Medhurst being the scene of the interesting ceremony; in consequence of which the ardent Chepstow had to agree to its being deferred till the spring. Florence found it rather good fun being “engaged.” She kept her stout admirer trotting backwards and forwards between England and Italy all the winter; which was rather a profitable arrangement so far as she was concerned, as on each occasion of arrival and departure she was presented with a new and gorgeous “souvenir” of the about-to-be absent Chepstow, or token of his remembrance of her when in distant lands. His devotion was really “sweetly touching,” as ladies’ maids say; and paid well, too, for long before she became Mrs. Chepstow, the beauty had accumulated a very fair show of jewellery and such-like feminine treasures, not a few of which, in justice to her be it recorded, found their way to the humble little house standing in a “genteel” row, in one of the northern suburbs of London, where dwelt the mother and sisters on whom what she possessed of a heart was bestowed. She was more genuinely amiable and good-tempered this winter than she had yet shown herself. To Ralph in particular her manner had become gentle, almost humble. Prosperity suited her, and she could afford, now that the cause of her jealous irritation was removed, almost to pity the man, in every respect so immeasurably her superior, whose happiness she had yet, in a moment of pique and mean spitefulness, deliberately endeavoured to destroy. She too, before leaving Altes, had heard and believed Sophy Berwick’s romance; and had seized with delight the opportunity of delaying, till too late, all communication between Sir Ralph and the girl who, she fancied, had usurped her place with him. Yet now, when she looked at him sometimes, and, despite all his proud self-control and impenetrable reserve, descried symptoms of a grief it was not in her self-absorbed nature to understand—now, when all was smiling on her, and she had begun to think herself decidedly better off with the manageable Mr. Chepstow, than she would have been as the wife of the incomprehensible Ralph, there were moments in which she wished she had not done that ugly thing, not said those two or three words, which even her easy conscience told her were neither more nor less than that which we prefer to call by any other name but its own—a cold-blooded, malicious lie. CHAPTER X. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. “Un mensonge qui flatte ou blesse le cœur trouve plus facilement créarice qu’une vérité indéferent.” OCTAVEFEUILET. “———Thank God, the gift of a good man’s love.” ANOLDSTORY.