DARRELL.--"True; I own my shallow fault, and beg you ten thousand pardons. So then you really believe, from your own experience, that there is much in Vance's theory and your own very happy illustration? Could we, after many years, turn back to the romance at the page at which we left off, we should--" COLONEL MORLEY.--"Not care a straw to read on! Certainly, half the peculiar charm of a person beloved must be ascribed to locality and circumstance." DARRELL.--"I don't quite understand you." COLONEL MORLEY.--"Then, as you liked my former illustration, I will explain myself by another one more homely. In a room to which you are accustomed there is a piece of furniture, or an ornament, which so exactly suits the place that you say: 'The prettiest thing I ever saw!' You go away--you return--the piece of furniture or the ornament has been moved into another room. You see it there, and you say: 'Bless me, is that the thing I so much admired!' The strange room does not suit it- losing its old associations and accessories, it has lost its charm. So it is with human beings--seen in one place, the place would be nothing without them; seen in another, the place without them would be all the better!" DARRELL (musingly)--"There are some puzzles in life which resemble the riddles a child asks you to solve. Your imagination cannot descend low enough for the right guess. Yet, when you are told, you are obliged to say, 'How clever!' Man lives to learn." "Since you have arrived at that conviction," replied Colonel Morley, amused by his friend's gravity, "I hope that you will rest satisfied with the experiences of Vance and myself; and that if you have a mind to propose to one of the young ladies whose merits we have already discussed, you will not deem it necessary to try what effect a prolonged absence might produce on your good resolution." "No!" said Darrell, with sudden animation. "Before three days are over my mind shall be made up." "Bravo!--as to whom of the three you would ask in marriage?" "Or as to the idea of ever marrying again. Adieu, I am going to knock at that door." "Mr. Vyvyan's! Ah, is it so, indeed? Verily, you are a true Dare-all." "Do not be alarmed. I go afterwards to an exhibition with Lady Adela, and I dine with the Carr Viponts. My choice is not yet made, and my hand still free." "His hand still free!" muttered the Colonel, pursuing his walk alone. "Yes--but three days hence--O--What will he do with it?" CHAPTER XVI. GUY DARRELL'S DECISION.