"Dear madam," it said, "our remarkable--not exactly interview, but conversation, this morning, may have misled you. My reference to an engagement of marriage was to another than the one you had in mind--in point of fact, my very recent engagement to marry Miss Natalia Douce. "You will pardon the mental reservation in my reply, when you reflect that I made it out of regard to your feelings. Those feelings I am sorry to disturb in any way, and I believe you will see that it is the truest consideration for them that leads me to give up the design we once cherished. Our understanding, too, was that when the farce was finished we would marry. The farce was never finished; the condition was not fulfilled; and therefore our agreement is dissolved. I have just sent in my resignation to the company, and shall dispose of the horse according as you may desire. The uniform I will retain (since it would not fit any one else), as also the respect for you, which has long been entertained by "Your friend, "ZADOC S. HARRINGTON." To this note the major never got any reply. In due time, therefore, his marriage with Natalia, being unimpeded, took place very quietly, and, after going off for a small wedding journey, the husband and wife came back to a pair of Mrs. Douce's small rooms, and began to live in them. Yes; this corpulent, middle-aged sparrow of a major had decided in favor of idealism--prosaic though the form in which it was presented to him--as against money and ease without honest affection. He threw aside the only success he had ever achieved, which was due to the opulent siren, Mrs. Magill, and fell back to his old shabby independence, with a poverty-stricken little wife to share it. I don't say it was good political economy; I dare say it was very bad sociology; and perhaps I ought to show how some dire catastrophe came upon him in consequence. The only obstacle in the way is, that it didn't. He remained reasonably happy ever after. By this it is not to be understood that he prospered materially. As a matter of fact, he had a terribly hard time. There were the old struggles, the old uncertainties of fortune to be faced, with new anxieties added. His own opinions and his wife's were at times far from being in unison.