People will talk, and the more you try to regulate your life by their opinions, the worse you will fare. Vide “The Old Man and his Ass.”

They said it was too bad that the heir to Blandfield Court should be married in London; but whether too bad or no, in the course of the autumn Charles Vining and his lady were announced as having departed for the Continent after a particular ceremony at Saint George’s, Hanover-square; a church where the wedding-fees must amount to something tolerably respectable in the course of the year; while, if at any time it should be announced that the clerk, beadle, and pew-opener all have country houses at Sydenham, Teddington, or some other pleasant spot a few miles from Babel smoke, and give champagne dinners, the writer, for one, will feel no surprise; though a feeling of envy may spring up in his breast the next time he encounters the gorgeous beadle sunning himself upon the broad steps of the sacred fane.

But the wedding trip was short on account of Sir Philip, who, though he did not complain, showed by his letters how eagerly he was looking forward to their return, which soon followed; and for them life glided on in a pleasant round of social enjoyment, either at Blandfield or the house Sir Philip had secured in Westbournia.

Two years had glided by, when, so as to do as others do in the season, Charley Vining was escorting his bonnie wife through the exhibition of the Royal Academy, though, truth to say, Charley had more than once been guilty of yawning as he stood before a grand specimen of Turneresque painting, for he said that he liked to see that sort of thing in a state of nature.

They were passing from one room to another, when suddenly there fell upon Charley Vining’s ears a strange sound—not loud, in fact it was very faint, but it was peculiar, and being somewhat bored and tired by the pictures, any little thing sufficed to attract his attention.

“Squea-eek, squea-eek, squea-eek!” went the noise, as of some mechanism slightly in want of oil; when, as Charley turned, his face suddenly became suffused, his broad chest swelled, his teeth were set, and his fists clenched, as, with flashing eyes, he looked like some refined and polished lion about to make a spring upon an enemy.

Ella saw what had attracted his attention at the same moment, and trembling like an aspen, the blood fled from her face, and her hands closed on her husband’s arm as she tried to draw him away.

But she might as well have tried to move an oak, as the stalwart frowning Hercules who stood there gazing over his shoulder at a most carefully-dressed man, walking with a peculiar limp—a halt which told of a cork leg, without the wheezing squeak it gave at every mincingly-taken step.

Apparently familiarised to............