So Wilmothurst would return to the old line again, in all its vast extent of fertile acreage, and with the latter would come a bride second to none in brilliance and beauty that had ever come there before, though not--like haughty Lady Julia, the daughter of ever so many earls--but of a hale, stout, and warm-hearted old fellow, who loved Jerry as his own son--though, sooth to say, we fear he will never be able to abide his mother, who eventually took up her abode, in sullen and stately grandeur, with Cousin Emily, at the restored Dower House in Langley Park. So Jerry did not go up to the Horse Guards after all, but quietly and rapidly set about the arrangements for his marriage, which was very soon to come about; and, meanwhile, as may be supposed, he spent every spare hour--and he had a good many of them--with Bella. 'The joy of my life is a _tête-à-tête_ with you, dearest Bella,' said Jerry, as he lay on the grass at her feet one evening smoking his brier-root. 'My lady mother's manner is so cold and stately that she quite thrusts all a poor fellow's heart back upon himself. By Jove, you should have seen her mode of welcoming me home after our shindy in Ashanti! I would have preferred less etiquette and more love; some of the kissing and clinging some of our poor fellows, like Tony Dalton, received on the day we landed at Portsmouth.' 'Poor Jerry! you will never want for kisses now,' said Bella, laughingly. 'By-the-by, I have a letter from Goring, who is again in town, and cutting quite a figure, I hear, in the world of fashion.' 'Has he heard aught yet of Miss Cheyne, poor girl?' asked Bella, who naturally took a deep interest in all love affairs, especially just then. 'He says that he has not. Here is his epistle; but that he is bored to death by a soap-boiler's widow and her daughter, an absurd couple, whom, for his sins, he met at the house of Taype, his solicitor, and who have made a dead set at him--waylay him in the park with their carriage, haunt the vicinity of his club, and pester him with invitations. '"They are shameless in their mode of teasing me, these devilish women," he continues, "and seem to possess the power of ubiquity, and bid fair to run me to earth. I must either cut them or hook it, and come back to the camp." Only fancy, Bella, what odd creatures they must be.' 'But everyone has not the wealth and handsome person of Captain Goring.' 'Yes; and Bevil is one of the right good sort.' So there were two sides to the picture drawn by the fervid fancy or vanity of Miss Victoria De Jobbyns; and Alison Cheyne, had she known all, need not have wept so bitterly far into the hours of the night, as related. CHAPTER XX. HOMELESS. With Alison events were fated to follow each other fast now.