Happy bells, tuneful bells, olden bells, wedding bells! Luke Somerton heard them as he sat with his wife at the Hall Farm, and puzzled his brain with all sorts of vague happy fancies that seemed to soar upwards in the smoke of his early after-dinner pipe. His wife spoke cheerily of the music, but it was a great struggle for her. Something would whisper in her ear that the Countess might perhaps have been her daughter, but the next moment she remembered that Phœbe was there as her ladyship’s friend, and that Lieutenant Somerton was amongst the distinguished visitors. That strange dream of ambition, you see, had not all passed away from the proud Lincolnshire woman’s heart. Joyful bells, brazen bells, jubilant bells, wedding bells! Travel your happy strains adown that glimmering river; no whisper of your tender music can reach that home-bound ship that rides on the Indian sea. CHAPTER II. “YET OFT O’ER CREDULOUS YOUTH SUCH SIRENS TRIUMPH, AND LEAD THEIR CAPTIVE SENSE IN CHAINS AS STRONG AS ADAMANT.” The day after the marriage of Miss Tallant, Lieutenant Somerton sat in Mrs. Dibble’s front parlour, discussing, with her interesting lodger, the details of his scheme for the future. Embellished with several pictures and vases, a lady’s easy chair, and other little things which the Lieutenant had purchased from time to time, the room looked quite neat and attractive. They would be content, Paul was telling her, with something a little better than this in their distant home, where they would begin the world all afresh, and remember nothing but their own true love for each other. “What an infatuated fool he must be, most renowned Asmodeo,” Don Cleofas would say. “Why, the young woman is vulgar too. Do you not notice how ignorant she is? And what shambling efforts she is making to hide it?” “You forget that my business,” says Asmodeo, “is to make ridiculous matches, marry maids to their masters, greybeards to raw girls; and see here, you forget the cloak!” Refreshing his memory upon these points, Don Cleofas would be satisfied of course; and so must we; for Paul Somerton sees only charms in “Chrissy’s” defects. We need hardly say that she had improved considerably in her manners since that conversation with Dibble at Severntown; she had long since ceased to call things “stunning” and “fizzing.” That gentleman, who was enamoured of her dexterity at cards, had done much to prune her exuberance of expression in this respect, and it was wonderful how quickly she further improved during her stay with Mrs. Dibble, not under the tuition of that elegant lady, but with the inspiration of Paul’s books and her own cunning instinct.