'Thank you—yes,' hastily said Felix. 'It was not that I was thinking of.'

'I see you are against me,' said the sculptor, perhaps anticipating the answer that actually came—'Selfishly, sir; only selfishly. Geraldine is so much our life and light at home, that your—your proposal was a shock to me; but I see the very great advantage it would be to her, and I could not desire anything better for her.' There were tears in his eyes, and the last words came with a choking utterance.

'I see,' said Mr. Grinstead, 'that I am doing a hard thing by you, and that to hold out the idea of her becoming even more to you sounds like mockery. Besides, I am too far from secure to begin to spare any pity for you. Now tell me, can I see her this evening? Where are you to meet her?'

'I am afraid I cannot propose your joining us then,' said Felix, more cordially, 'for it is to be at the Baker Street Bazaar, about some very domestic shopping; but I believe we shall come home between six and seven o'clock.'

'Very well; you will find me there. You will use your own judgment as to preparing her.'

Very domestic shopping indeed it was. The ancient coal-scuttle, a Froggatt legacy, had three decided holes in it, and Wilmet had a vision of one glimpsed in Baker Street. She would not trust either Felix or Cherry to choose it separately, but conjointly she thought they might counterbalance one another, and combine taste, discretion, and economy; and they were both afraid of failing her.

The very contrast of that commission, and the importance ascribed to it, with the ease and luxuriousness in Mr. Grinstead's house, served to bring before Felix the sense of the promotion for Geraldine that he was so ungratefully accepting. Little tender being, the first to wither under the blight of penury, how could he grudge her the sunshine of ease and wealth, cherishing care, prosperity, beauty, society—all that was congenial to her? No, indeed—he rejoiced. Yet how rejoice—when every time he came in from his work, he felt it a fresh blank when he did not meet her responsive look of welcome, or hear the half-quaint, half-pathetic tones that made much of the tiniest adventure of the day. His heart was sore enough at Edgar's evasion, and to lose Cherry from his hearth would quench its most cherished spark. He had been so secure of her, too. She had seemed so set apart from marriage, so peculiarly dependent on him, that it had been to her that he had turned with a sort of certainty as his companion in the life of self-sacrifice that he knew to lie before him. It was no small part of that sacrifice, that as he went to and fro on foot and by omnibus in the busy streets, he was schooling his spirit to look on the change not as desertion of himself, but as a brilliant and happy prospect for the little sister, who had powers and tastes such as ought not to be buried in the room over the shop at Bexley. He must keep the regret well out of mind, or he could never persuade her naturally, or avoid poisoning her happiness.

Should he prepare her? That must be left to chance. And chance was not favourable, for when he had found his way into the pit at the Baker Street Bazaar, appropriated to ornamental ironmongery, he saw her accompanied by Robina and Angela, whom Mrs. Underwood had good-naturedly sent for to spend her last afternoon with her. There was a sort of pang when Cherry's face greeted him, and her hand nestled into its accustomed hold on his arm just where it had leant by preference these sixteen years; and as she said in her low playful tones, 'Is it not a curious study to see invention expended on making an intrinsically hideous thing beautiful by force of japan, gilding, and painting? You see the only original design nature provided for a coal-scuttle is the nautilus shell, and unluckily that is grotesquely inappropriate! Just look at the row of ungainly things craning out their chins like overdressed dwarfs. I am decidedly for the simplest and least disguised, though Robin is for the snail, and Angel, I believe, for that highly suitable Watteau scene. Which do you vote for?'

'The most likely to satisfy Wilmet,' said Felix absently, knowing he should hate whichever it might be, and wondering who would ever again put so much interest into common things.

'The scuttle of Mettie's dreams appears to be no more,' said Cherry; 'but as Robin always seems to me guided by her spirit, I am inclined to think it safest to go by her judgment.'