"Then let me again be _fin de siècle_ in my next incarnation!" exclaimed Isabel. "I shall avoid having an incarnation when there is a new century, just as in the country one avoids having a party when there is a new moon." "But you want to go on somewhere, don't you--either here or elsewhere?" "Of course I do: I have not the slightest intention of fizzling out. I shall have 'To be continued' engraved upon my tombstone. And I really don't feel that I've had half enough out of this life yet: I should like one or two more turns before I go off to something higher--provided, of course, that they are not put in at the beginning of a century. And now we are back among the haunts of men, and the ruins of extinct tea-tables," added Isabel, as we ascended the steps from the sunk garden and came back to the group assembled on the lawn: "so you must introduce me to your wife at once, and let me tell her how unlucky she is to have missed the 'eighties, and how lucky she is to have found you." Which I accordingly did, and was rejoiced to see that my old friend and my new wife got on together like a house on fire. The friendship between the two progressed so rapidly that when I was obliged to return home the following week in order to attend to some rather important business connected with the Kent County Council, Fay stayed on for a few days with the Chayfords in their cottage at Bythesea. I did not like being separated from my darling even for that short time; but I felt that no young woman at the outset of life could have a wiser or a better friend than she whom I had first known as Isabel Carnaby. When I reached home I found Annabel established there to welcome me: but whether this premature return from Scotland proved that she loved the Macdonalds less or me more, I was not able to determine. She was naturally immensely interested in my meeting with the Chayfords, and very anxious to know how Time had dealt with Isabel and her husband. "I never altogether approved of that marriage," she remarked; "it was one of those love-in-a-cottage sort of affairs which are so apt to turn out uncomfortable and inconvenient." "Still, the cottage happened to be a good-sized house in Prince's Gate, if you remember." "I know that: but all the same Isabel had much better have married Lord Wrexham when she had the chance. I always thought him such a very pleasant person besides being a Prime Minister, and so much more suited to her than Mr. Seaton. And she behaved so badly to him too, which was so very wrong of her. I never cared much for Mr. Seaton myself; but then I never do care much for people with long noses. "I suppose that Isabel, though she didn't love it little, loved it long," I said feebly. "Oh, Reggie, what a silly joke! And all the same, I don't think you cared much for Mr. Seaton, either."