?’ I said, when the first transport of tears and kisses had subsided.

‘No, love,—unless you will go with me.’

‘I will, gladly,’ I answered, ‘if you think the change will amuse you, and if you will put off the journey till next week.’

He readily consented, but said there was no need of much preparation, as he should not be for staying long, for he did not wish me to be Londonized, and to lose my country freshness and originality by too much intercourse with the ladies of the world.  I thought this folly; but I did not wish to contradict him now: I merely said that I was of very domestic habits, as he well knew, and had no particular wish to mingle with the world.

So we are to go to London on Monday, the day after to-morrow.  It is now four days since the termination of our quarrel, and I am sure it has done us both good: it has made me like Arthur a great deal better, and made him behave a great deal better to me.  He has never once attempted to annoy me since, by the most distant allusion to Lady F—, or any of those disagreeable reminiscences of his former life.  I wish I could blot them from my memory, or else get him to regard such matters in the same light as I do.  Well! it is something, however, to have made him see that they are not fit subjects for a conjugal jest.  He may see further some time.  I will put no limits to my hopes; and, in spite of my aunt’s forebodings and my own unspoken fears, I trust we shall be happy yet.

CHAPTER XXV

On the eighth of April we went to London, on the eighth of May I returned, in obedience to Arthur’s wish; very much against my own, because I left him behind.  If he had come with me, I should have been very glad to get home again, for he led me such a round of restless dissipation while there, that, in that short space of time, I was quite tired out.  He seemed bent upon displaying me to his friends and acquaintances in particular, and the public in general, on every possible occasion, and to the greatest possible advantage.  It was something to feel that he considered me a worthy object of pride; but I paid dear for the gratification: for, in the first place, to please him I had to violate my cherished predilections, my almost rooted principles in favour of a plain,