"Your future wife!" she repeats, with a dreamy, mournful smile. "Am I that? I think not. I shall _never_ be your wife," she says, a look of melancholy inspiration crossing and darkening, as a travelling cloud crosses and darkens the blue eyes of a June brook, the sweet red and sweeter white of her little piquante face. "Do you know any just cause or impediment why you should not be?" he asks, gaily. "None," she answers, shuddering a little, as she has got into the habit of doing lately--"except" (throwing herself impulsively into his glad arms) "that it would make me so intolerably happy!" There is a pause--a little brief pause--in which that shyest, fleetest-winged of earth's visitants--Happiness--folds her pinions and settles down for a little minute on two beating, trembling human hearts. "Do you know," continues Essie, after awhile--raising herself, and looking up, with tears glistening, like dew on the autumn grass, upon her long swart lashes--"Do you know that in a book I was reading the other day I met this sentence: 'Le bonheur sur terre est un crime puni de mort comme le génie, comme la divinité'? It has haunted me ever since yesterday." "As far as that goes," he answers, thoughtfully, "there is nothing in this world that is not punished with death, except Death himself. Well" (smiling fondly, and stroking her ruffled, scented love-locks), "may I come? may I be Mother Hubbard's dog?" "Why do you want to come _now_, particularly?" she asks, in rather a troubled voice. "Because I am a coward," he answers, laughing--"because I like a quiet life, and I imagine that there will be squally weather here when I announce my intention of taking you as a helpmeet for me." "I _am_ a _mésalliance_, I suppose?" she answers, rather sadly. "What will Sir Thomas say? Anything very bad?" "Oh, nothing out of the way," answers Gerard, with a careless shrug. "He will call me an ass, and tell me that I always was, from a boy, the biggest fool he ever came across; and that, for his part, he'll wash his hands of me: and he'll probably conclude with a threat of cutting me off with a shilling." "And will he?" asks Esther, quickly, looking up eager-eyed, parted-lipped. "Why do you ask?" said the young man, sharply. "Do you think that I want to marry a _beggar?_" inquires she, playfully, not detecting his suspicion. "You need not be alarmed," he replies, coldly, and his arms slacken their fond hold a little. "He will not, for the very excellent reason that he cannot." The door handle, turning, rattles. With one spring, Esther returns to her seat--to her deserted cows and impossible profiles. St. John looks out of the window. No transformation scene at Drury Lane could be more complete. "Ahab--Jehu--Zimri--Omri--Joash!" recites Miss Blessington, entering, with an open Bible in her hand. CHAPTER XVIII.