At eleven, he might have been seen walking in Millard’s halls, uneasily, with a neat parasol in hand. At 11.03, Miss Millicent descended Jacob’s Ladder equipped for a walk. She was evidently oblivious of her appointment, and taking no notice of poor Dulger at the lower turn of his beat, she turned into the parlour and sat there quite alone, playing with her gloves. Surely she was waiting for someone. Trepidatingly Dulger approached---- When they returned from their walk, an hour afterward, it was announced, proclaimed, thundered, through Millard’s and through Newport, that Miss Center and Mr. Dulger were engaged. Bulletins to that effect were dispatched to postoffices from the Aroostook to the Rio Grande, as members of Congress say. Billy telegraphed to his friend, the bookkeeper, to send a thousand-dollar diamond ring from Tiffany’s by express; it came, and glittered on her finger that evening at the hop. Billy’s investment for the ring was one-tenth of one per cent. on her million, and, _certes_, was not extravagant. Rich Milly! Poor Milly! Poor Dulger! Rich Dulger! Poor, rich Mr. and Mrs. Dulger!--the man never forgetting his long and sulky apprenticeship--the woman, unapproached any more by exhilarating flirtations, and never forgetting that her yielding was part compunction and part pis-allerage. So ends the Billy-dulgerid. Dunstan came down to inquire about to-morrow’s race. Mr. Waddy begged him not to withdraw, unless Diana’s condition should be critical. No one else could ride Pallid. Peter Skerrett, in search of Mr. Waddy, came up and mentioned the new engagement. No one was surprised. “It was as sure as shooting,” said Gyas Cutus. “He treed her. I gaads! I knew she’d have to come down. He’s been lamming her with bouquets ever since she came out.” “And now,” says Peter, “she has come down in a shower of gold, reversing the fable of _Danae_.” “There’s no fable about the million,” said Cloanthus. “I wonder if Billy would lend me a V on the strength of it?” “I think it’s a case of _dépit amoureux_,” whispered to Dunstan, Peter Skerrett, penetrating sage. Dunstan said nothing, and presently walked off. This gossip was distressing to him; he could only think of his love regained, his love perhaps dying. He must not see her that day. Absolute repose was necessary. “The old wound,” he thought; “the old wound,” and thinking of it, he shuddered again. Peter Skerrett took Mr. Waddy’s arm, and walked him away to a quiet corner. “That damned scoundrel of a Frenchman wouldn’t accept your proposition,” he began. “He said it was wealth for him, but the infernal coxcomb also said he wanted to range himself and become a virtuous man, and a happy father of a family. He must have the ‘fair Arabella, whom he loved and whom he believed was secluded from him by the decree of a harsh parent’; some such stuff he uttered and then blew a kiss from his bruised, swelled lips. Faugh!”