Standing at the window of their drawing-room on this balmy September afternoon were Mark Cray and his wife. The fashionable world were of course not in London, but Mr. and Mrs. Cray formed an exception--there is no rule without one, you know. Mark felt that he could not be absent from those attractive offices in the City, even for a day. It was well that one of them should be seen there, and Barker was everlastingly running down into Wales. "Never mind, Carine," he said to his wife. "We'll take it out next year: we'll have a three-months' autumn trip in Germany. The money will be rolling in upon us then, and I need not stick here to keep the shareholders in good humour, as I have to do now." Carine obediently acquiesced; and she did it with cheerfulness: she had not been sufficiently long in her new and luxurious home to care about leaving it. But she solaced herself with all the gaiety that was obtainable within reach. Drives out of town by day, and the theatre at night, or some other amusement accessible in September. On this day they had been to a wedding at the house of some new friends at Richmond; and they had but now returned. If you look out you may see the fine carriage with its four grey horses just turning from the door, for Caroline, capricious Caroline, wayward and whimsical as a child, had stepped out of it undecided whether to go out again and drive in the Park before dinner. So she kept the carriage waiting until she was pleased to decide not to go. "I am a little tired, Mark, and they'd be ever so long taking out those post-horses and putting in our own," she said to her husband. "We could never go in the Park with four horses and postboys wearing white favours. Empty as the drive is, we should have a crowd round us." "Taking you for the bride; and a very pretty one!" returned Mark, gallantly. Caroline laughed; a little all-conscious laugh of vanity. She laid her beautiful bonnet of real lace and marabouts--and for which the milliner would assuredly charge £10--on a side-table, and threw off her costly white lace mantle. The folds of her silk dress, its colour the delicate bloom of the spring lilac, rustled as she went back to the window. "Only think, Mark, we have been married nearly a year! It will be a year next month." Mark stood with his face close to the window. He was looking at the trees in the Green Park, their leaves playing in the golden light of the setting sun. Caroline flirted a few drops on her handkerchief from the miniature essence-bottle dangling from her wrist, and raised it to her carmine cheeks. The day's excitement had brought to them that rich bloom so suspiciously beautiful. "I declare there's Barker!" exclaimed Mark. "I thought he'd be in."