We need not take the trouble to convince the _Pyrotechnic_ that Phœbe Somerton is drawn to the life, if the _Pyrotechnic_ thinks otherwise; but let us tell you, friendly reader, who has accompanied us, paper-knife in hand, that Phœbe Somerton was all we have described her in beauty and in gentleness and truth. And no wonder that she had been attracted by Arthur Phillips, with his big, black, melancholy eyes, and his fine intellectual face. One good nature speedily detects its counterpart in another, and it was a testimonial of high and noble character to be loved by a woman like Phœbe. Love perpetrates strange, mad freaks, but it would have been next to impossible for a pure nature like Phœbe’s to have allied itself with another that was unworthy. Luke Somerton and his wife grew quite genial in the presence of the radiating love-beams that seemed to shine about the lovers; and the bailiff thought about his young days in the great Lincolnshire fens and wolds. He and his elder brother had quarrelled when they were boys, about Sarah Howard, his present wife. Luke had loved her passionately, and had been persistent in his attentions towards her; but Sarah played her cards to win the elder brother, who would come in for the great bulk of the property. She was worldly, as you have seen, and had fixed upon doing great things if she married the elder Somerton. But it was only Luke who really loved her; his brother flirted with her, and eventually married a rich widow, whereupon Sarah Howard was fain to be content with Luke, who had quarrelled with his brother, not because his brother loved Sarah, but because he did not. For Luke, like a great, fond Lincolnshire lad as he was, on learning that Miss Howard liked his elder brother better than himself, had actually given her up, and called upon his brother to marry her. And now Luke looked back to these days, and remembered the time when Sarah had professed to return his love, and when they walked to the church through the meadows, and over the bridge that spanned the sparkling beck; and he heard the half-a-dozen bells ringing afterwards,--heard them now after all those years: and he was happier in these memories because he knew that these two lovers really loved each other, both of them as truly as he had loved Sarah Howard. Mrs. Somerton would now and then become quite cheerful, and tell Arthur in fun how she had disliked him once, because she could see he was after Amy; and this would start conversations and confessions that gave the greatest pleasure to all concerned.