“I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and I know I deserved that you should be very cross. But you see I had been such a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect that I should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of marrying for love, that I thought you couldn’t believe me. Because, you see, you didn’t know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from John. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me to be, and fearful that we couldn’t understand one another and might come to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I said to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And as he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich church in the presence of nobody — except an unknown individual who dropped in,” here her eyes sparkled more brightly, “and half a pensioner. And now, isn’t it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that no words have been said which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best of friends at the pleasantest of teas!”

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair (after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the neck) and again went on.

“And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, how we live, and what we have got to live upon. Well! And so we live on Blackheath, in the charm — ingest of dolls’ houses, de — lightfully furnished, and we have a clever little servant who is de — cidedly pretty, and we are economical and orderly, and do everything by clockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and we have all we want, and more. And lastly, if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion of my husband, my opinion is — that I almost love him!”

“And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may,” said her husband, smiling, as he stood by her side, without her having detected his approach, “my opinion of my wife, my opinion is — .” But Bella started up, and put her hand upon his lips.

“Stop, Sir! No, John, dear! Seriously! Please not yet a while! I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.”

“My darling, are you not?”

“Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may some day find me! Try me through some reverse, John — try me through some trial — and tell them after that, what you think of me.”

“I will, my Life,” said John. “I promise it.”

“That’s my dear John. And you won’t speak a word now; will you?”

“And I won’t,” said John, with a very expressive look of admiration around him, “speak a word now!”

She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and said, looking at the rest of them sideways out of her bright eyes: “I’ll go further, Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don’t suspect it — he has no idea of it — but I quite love him!”

Even Mrs. Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married daughter, and seemed in a majestic manner to imply remotely that if R. W. had been a more deserving object, she too might have condescended to come down from her pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, had strong doubts of the policy of the course of treatment, and whether it might not spoil Mr. Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that young gentleman. R. W. himself was for his part convinced that he was father of one of the most charming of girls, and that Rokesmith was the most favoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to him, Rokesmith would probably not have contested.

The newly-married pair left early, so that they might walk at leisure to their starting-place from London, for Greenwich. At first they were very cheerful and talked much; but after a while, Bella fancied that her husband was turning somewhat thoughtful. So she asked him: