only natural to his excited imagination. He saw himself by her side in that garden of beatitudes, disclosing to her all that was in his heart; instinctively he recalled all that the poets have said of woman the consoler--woman the inspirer. When he had gained that priceless sympathy, what glorious amends he should make for the few days' indolence to which he now gave way! Thus in his inexperience he went on, preparing for himself, as any one a little wiser could have seen at a glance, one of the bitterest disappointments of early life. Thursday came, a day of days--such a day as people reckon by, months after; a soft and bright autumnal morning, breathing like spring. As Vincent issued from his own door and took his way along George Street to Grange Lane, he saw the curate of St. Roque's walking before him in the same direction; but Mr. Wentworth himself was not more orthodoxly clerical in every detail of his costume than was the young Nonconformist, who was going, not to Lady Western's breakfast-party, but into the Bower of Bliss, the fool's paradise of his youth. Mr. Wentworth, it is true, was to see Lucy Wodehouse there, and was a true lover; but he walked without excitement to the green gate which concealed from him no enchanted world of delights, but only a familiar garden, with every turn of which he was perfectly acquainted, and which, even when Lucy was by his side, contained nothing ineffable or ecstatic. It was, to tell the truth, an autumnal garden, bright enough still with scarlet gleams of geranium and verbena, with a lawn of velvet smoothness, and no great diminution as yet in the shade of the acacias and lime-trees, and everything in the most perfect order in the trim shrubberies, through the skilful mazes of which some bright groups were already wandering, when Vincent passed through to the sunny open door. At the open windows within he could see other figures in a pleasant flutter of gay colour and light drapery, as he advanced breathless to take his own place in that unknown world. He heard his own name announced, and went in, with a chill of momentary doubt upon his high expectations, into the airy sunshiny room, with its gay, brilliant, rustling crowd, the ladies all bright and fresh in their pretty morning-dresses, and the din of talk and laughter confusing his unaccustomed ears. For a moment the stranger stood embarrassed, looking round him, eagerly investigating the crowd for that one face, which was not only the sole face of woman in the world so far as he was concerned, but in reality the only face he knew in the gay party, where everybody except himself knew everybody else. Then he saw her, and his doubts were over. When she perceived him, she made a few steps forward to meet him and held out her hand.