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dance."
    Beatrix opened her mouth to refute this heresy, and shut it again.
    "The fact is, my dear," pursued her lord, "you were in such high gig because it was your brother who won her that you could never see a fault in her. Mind, I'm not saying that it wasn't a triumph, because it was. When I think of all the fellows she had dangling after her—lord, she could have been a duchess if she'd wanted! Yeovil begged her three times to marry him: told me so himself, at her funeral. Come to think of it, it was the only piece of good sense she ever showed, preferring Gary to Yeovil," he added thoughtfully.
    "I know she was often a little wild, but so very sweet, and with such engaging ways! I am persuaded she would have learnt to mind Gary, for she did most sincerely love him!"
    "She didn't love him enough to mind him when he forbade her to drive those grays of his," said Warren grimly. "Flouted him the instant his back was turned, and broke her neck into the bargain. Well, I was devilish sorry for Gary, but I don't mind owning to you, Trix, that I thought he was better out of the affair than he knew."
    Upon reflection, Mrs. Wetherby was obliged to acknowledge that there might be a certain amount of justice in this severe stricture. But it in no way reconciled her to her brother's approaching nuptials to a lady as sober as the dead Clarissa had been volatile.
    Seldom had a betrothal met with more general approval than that of Gareth Ludlow to Clarissa Lincombe, even the disappointed mothers of other eligible damsels thinking it a perfect match. If the lady was the most courted in town, the gentleman was Society's best liked bachelor. Indeed, he had seemed to be the child of good fortune, for he was not only endowed with a handsome competence and an impeccable lineage, but possessed as well as these essentials no common degree of good looks, a graceful, well-built frame, considerable proficiency in the realm of sport, and an open, generous temper which made it impossible for even his closest rivals to grudge him his success in winning Clarissa. Sadly Mrs. Wetherby looked back to that halcyon period, before the fatal carriage accident had laid Clarissa's charm and beauty in cold earth, and Gareth's heart with them.
    He was thought to have made an excellent recovery from the blow; and everyone was glad that the tragedy had not led him to indulge in any extravagance of grief, such as selling all his splendid horses, or wearing mourning weeds for the rest of his life. If, behind the smile in his eyes, there was a little sadness, he could still laugh; and if he found the world empty, that was a secret he kept always to himself. Even Beatrix, who adored him, had been encouraged to hope that he had ceased to mourn Clarissa; and she had spared no pains to bring to his notice any damsel who seemed likely to captivate him. Not the mildest flirtation had rewarded her efforts, but this had not unduly depressed her. However modest he might be, he could not but know that he was regarded as a matrimonial prize of the first rank; and she knew him too well to suppose that he would raise in any maidenly breast expectations which he had no intention of fulfilling. Until this melancholy day, she had merely thought that she had not hit upon the right female, never that the right female did not exist. Her tears, on hearing his announcement, had sprung less from disappointment than from the sudden realization that more than Clarissa's loveliness had perished in that fatal accident of seven years ago. He had spoken to her as a man might who had put his youth behind him, with all its hopes and ardours, and was looking towards a placid future, comfortable, perhaps, but unenlivened by any touch of romance. Mrs. Wetherby, perceiving this, and recalling a younger Gareth, who had seen life as a gay adventure, cried herself to sleep.
    So, too, when the news of Sir Gareth's very flattering offer was later made known to her, did the Lady Hester Theale.
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