Vassalla did not answer the letter, but seeing there was no hope for him, went off to America, and found among the passengers the Bishop of Patagonia and his wife, accompanied by Mrs. Pellypop, who had insisted on coming. The Bishop yielded, in the secret hope that some benevolent cannibal might eat the old lady, but she evidently did not look inviting enough, as she is still alive and hearty. Mrs. Verschoyle, whose unhappy fate no one particularly deplored, was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, and lies there at rest, with all her loves, her hates, and ambitions. Carmela could not honestly pretend to mourn, but she regretted that the last interview she had with her was such a stormy one. Ronald went down again to Hurley, and spent the summer months on the river in the delightful company of Carmela, who, now that the cloud, so long overshadowing her life, had passed away, was perfectly happy. They were wrapped up in one another, and paid no attention to the other guests at Bellfield. This was decidedly selfish, and would have been resented, only it so happened that two other couples under Sir Mark Trevor's hospitable roof were doing precisely the same thing. In the first place, Mr. Patrick Ryan had persuaded Kate Lester to agree to change her name for his own. "A fair exchange is no robbery," observed Pat when he proposed. "I give you my name and you give me yourself." "And you call that a fair exchange," retorted his lady-love. "I think you're getting the best of the bargain--I'm marrying a poor man." "Of course," said Pat cheerfully, "that's where my self-sacrifice comes in. I can't support myself, so I'm going to support you--we can live on bread-and-cheese and---- "Well?" "If you've no objection, we'll have an acting charade on the last word." They did! Sir Mark was resigned to the infliction of two loving couples staying with him, but he did feel rather crushed when Gerald Foster asked him to bestow Bell's hand upon him. "Good gracious!" ejaculated the astonished baronet, "it's a catching disease--I'm glad Mrs. Pellypop isn't here, or I'd fall a victim to matrimony myself." He liked Foster, however, and moreover saw he was a man likely to make his mark in the world, so agreed to the engagement, and resigned himself, in a Christian spirit, to the awful fact of living in the same house with three young men engaged to the same number of young women. "I feel like an elderly Cupid," he said plaintively; "the only remedy for this epidemic of love-making is to get them married as soon as possible." So as soon as possible the marriages took place all at the same time in the church at Marlow, and the excitement was great over the treble event, as such a thing had not occurred in the neighbourhood within the memory of man. It will be interesting news to all matrimonial pessimists that none of these marriages have as yet turned out failures, or does there seem the least chance of any such possibility.