'We won't talk about that either. I shall not marry a rich woman again, that's all. In fact, I don't care for such people; my best friends, real friends, are all more or less strugglers, and perhaps there's no harm in saying that it gives me pleasure to help them when I've a chance. I like to buy a picture of a poor devil artist. I like to smoke my pipe with good fellows who never go out of their way for money's sake. All the same, it's a good thing to be well off. But for that, now, I couldn't make the acquaintance of such people as these at Brackley Hall. I more than half like them. Old Armitage is a gentleman, and looks back upon generations of gentlemen, his ancestors. Ah! you can't buy that! And his daughters are devilish nice girls, with sweet soft voices. I'm glad the old fellow met us yesterday.' It was now dark; I looked up and saw the stars brightening. We sat for another quarter of an hour, each busy with his own thoughts, then rose and parted for the night. A week later, when I returned to London, Ireton was still living at the little inn, and a letter I received from him at the beginning of October told me he had just left. 'The country was exquisite that last week,' he wrote;--and it struck me that 'exquisite' was a word he must have caught from some one else's lips. I heard from him again in the following January. He wrote from the Isle of Wight, and informed me that in the spring he was to be married to Miss Ethel Armitage, second daughter of Humphrey Armitage, Esq., of Brackley Hall. CHRISTOPHERSON It was twenty years ago, and on an evening in May. All day long there had been sunshine. Owing, doubtless, to the incident I am about to relate, the light and warmth of that long-vanished day live with me still; I can see the great white clouds that moved across the strip of sky before my window, and feel again the spring languor which troubled my solitary work in the heart of London. Only at sunset did I leave the house. There was an unwonted sweetness in the air; the long vistas of newly lit lamps made a golden glow under the dusking flush of the sky. With no purpose but to rest and breathe, I wandered for half an hour, and found myself at length where Great Portland Street opens into Marylebone Road. Over the way, in the shadow of Trinity Church, was an old bookshop, well known to me: the gas-jet shining upon the stall with its rows of volumes drew me across. I began turning over pages, and--invariable consequence--fingering what money I had in my pocket. A certain book overcame me; I stepped into the little shop to pay for it.