marriage they crossed the Channel again on an early morning, Nancy very ill, and Arthur dignified but pale, and arrived at London on a rainy December night, wet and miserable as anything could well be. Next day they went _back_. Arthur had taken rooms at the little inn which stood opposite Mr. Eagles’ house, looking on the green, where Durant had been lodged. But before they reached that place there was a greeting to be got through at the station, the whole Bates family, no less, having assembled to welcome their daughter. Nancy’s spirits had risen from the moment she had touched English soil. She had talked to everybody, guards, porters, the servants at the hotel, with exuberant satisfaction, notwithstanding the bad passage and its natural consequences. “Oh, what a blessing to be at home!” she said. “Oh, Arthur, isn’t it nice to be back? I feel as if I should like to hug everybody. How much nicer everything looks in England! One can have some tea or some beer, instead of always that sour wine; and sausage-rolls and Bath buns!” cried Nancy, looking at these appalling luxuries in the Dover refreshment-room with unfeigned delight. It had been on Arthur’s lips to cry out, “For heaven’s sake speak a little lower!” but he said to himself, what was the use? One or two people turned round and smiled. And she bought a Bath-bun notwithstanding her recent sufferings. It seemed to Nancy better than all the delicate _plats_ in the world. It was English, it was adapted to her native tastes and her usually fine digestion. Arthur hurried her away with the objectionable dainty in a little paper-bag in her hand. “We must give in to prejudices a little,” he said. “You know most people think there is nothing like French cookery.” “I would not give a nice plain English dinner--mother will have one for us to-morrow, I know--for all the little oddments they have in France,” said Nancy.