“I think he was pleased to see how your heart melted to poor Arthur, and to know of this,” said Lucy, pointing to a letter which lay on the table. Was it for her to say that there was still something else which made Durant still more glad? “Oh, Lucy! as if my heart required to be melted towards my son, my only boy!” And then you may be sure Lucy cried; what could a girl do? It can scarcely be said that these preparatory days were much more cheerful to Arthur. Everybody had dropped away from him. He had the prospect in a few days of what people are pleased to call happiness. He was to marry the bride of his choice, and to take her away with him, the two by themselves, the Elysium of the primitive imagination; and Arthur was very much in love. He believed that as soon as they got away, when he had once separated this rose of his from all the domestic thorns surrounding her, he would be perfectly happy. It was the one redeeming point in the difficulties of the moment that he entirely believed this. Then, at least, he thought he was sure of blessedness; and that prospect made much possible that would not have been possible otherwise. But to be cut off from all companionship of his own class, even from Mr. Eagles, and the “men” who frequented Mr. Eagles’ intellectual workshops; to be separated from his family whom he loved, though he was angry with them, to have nothing to do, though on ordinary occasions he was not disposed to do very much--this isolation was very hard upon Arthur. He had no society but that of the Bates’ household, and was often left to amuse himself as he could in the stuffy parlour, without even Nancy, who had naturally a great many things to do on the eve of her wedding, which brides in rich households are not called upon to think of. Arthur winced when he had to endure the companionship of the tax-collector or his son Charley, unsweetened by Nancy’s presence; and it must be allowed that as the time approached which was to bind him for ever to the family, his toleration of them, which during his courtship had been unbounded, began to give way. It began to be very hard to put up with Mr. Bates’ rum-and-water, and the railleries of Sarah Jane; and Matilda and Mrs. Bates, both of whom were “sensible,” began to perceive this--the mother with resentment, the daughter with a certain sympathy. Matilda intimated to her mother that “it was touch and go with Arthur,” and that she “wasn’t surprised;” but the father and son and Sarah Jane remained happily unaware that they were not the best of company for Nancy’s future husband, whom they called freely by his Christian name, making him “quite at home.” This gave him an eagerness to push on the wedding, which was quite the proper thing in the circumstances. He would have had it a week earlier if he could have persuaded them to depart from any of the grandeur they intended, and as it was, he chafed and grumbled at the delay in a way, which as Mrs. Bates remarked, was “most