And so the trousseau was put in hand; the wedding-gown chosen; the wedding-cake ordered; Mrs. Mornington taking all trouble off her brother's hands in the matter of the reception that was to be held after the wedding. Everybody was to be asked, of course; but the invitations were not to go out till a fortnight before the day. "I don't want people to suppose I am giving them plenty of time to think about wedding-presents," Suzette explained, when she insisted upon this short notice. All these arrangements were made in October--the marriage settlement was drafted, and everybody was satisfied, since Geoffrey's liberality had required the curb rather than the spur. For the rest of the year the lovers had nothing to think of but each other, and those great spirits of the past whose voices still spoke to them, whose genius was the companion of their lives. Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schubert, were the friends of those quiet days; and love found its most eloquent interpreters in the language of the dead. Sometimes, with a dim foreboding of evil, Suzette found herself wondering what she would do with that fiery restless spirit, were it not for that soothing influence of music; but she could not imagine Geoffrey dissociated from that second voice which seemed more characteristic of him than any spoken language--that voice of passionate joys and passionate regrets, of deepest melancholy, and of wildest mirth. Music made a third in their lives--the strongest link between them, holding them aloof from that outside world to which the mysteries of harmony were unknown. Matcham society shrugged shoulders of wonder, not unmixed with disdain, when it was told how Miss Vincent practised five hours a day at home or at Discombe, and how she was beginning to play as well as a professional pianist. There had been a little dinner at the Manor House, and Geoffrey and his betrothed had played a duet which they called a Salterello, and Mrs. Mornington was complimented on her niece's gifts. Her execution was really surprising! No other young lady in Matcham could play like that. The girls of the present day lived too much out-of-doors to aspire to "execution." If they could play some little thing of Schumann's or the easiest of Chopin's or Rubinstein's valses, they were satisfied with themselves.