deceive me, and I will hope with all my heart and soul that your efforts will soon be triumphant. You have zeal for

your friend, you have humanity to inspire you, andand-you have my-my best wishes, if they are of any importance."

"You cannot imagine how happy you make me by these words, and never man had such inducements to exertion as I have," I replied, again forgetting that my exertions must be rather those of Inspector Tanner than of Sir Galahad. "I shall look forward to claiming my guerdon; I shall think of that rose

"Are you really so anxious for such a trifle?" she inquired, looking at me earnestly, as if surprised.

"A trifle? it is everything to me it is life to me; and when I have won it-when I have won this symbol, Lady Rose, I warn you that I shall be bold in my interpretation."

A bright blush suffused her beautiful face, and she said, falteringly, "A symbol, did I say?-did I promise that it should be a symbol?"

"You did not promise it, but you will not be so cruel as to take all the hope out my life?"

of

Lady Rose lowered her beautiful eyes, and I was just going to begin my interpretations d'avance, when lo! that pessima tigris Mrs Badger bounced round the corner of the walk, and broke up our interview with strident cries of "Luncheon! luncheon! luncheon!" Disappointed, but not desponding, I went away that day, for in my heart I felt that this lovely prize might be mine.

CHAPTER XII.

"There are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary."-Winter's Tale.

PURE happiness comes only to us mortal men, if it ever comes at all, in swift electric flashes, that are gone while we are yet wondering at the phenomenon. The conviction of my hopes sent such an electric thrill through my heart, but ere yet its intense vibrations had pulsed themselves away, everwatchful Care was up and doing. I had thought of my love, of wooing and winning, in an ethereal and abstract way; to hear Lady Rose confess that my love was requited that had been my goal, and I had looked no farther. But now that there

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dawned a possibility of reaching it, Care, who never seems to abandon one method of torture till she has secured another, was

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ready for me. Wooing and winning," quoth she, "are simple enough-though, by the by, the latter is no certainty for you yet -to woo and to win are matters of everyday occurrence; but you know it is proverbially rare to wed the object of your first love. How are you to marry? What is your income? You wince, but that is the main question after all.

it is; what isn't, pray?

Sordid? of course

Can you pay rent

and taxes, wages, weekly bills, monthly bills, yearly bills, for an establishment such as you can ask a lady to share? What is your income? Consider. Out with it!" It unfortunately called for no deep financial calculation to arrive at the sum in question. The pay of a captain, a heavily-mulcted £200 a-year, and £300 a-year of my own in the Funds-it was a case of very simple

addition; and this was all I had, and all I could ever calculate upon as a certainty. That was bad; it was desperately bad.

The failure of the "three-hundred-a-year marriages," so much talked of once, has no doubt been painfully demonstrated long ago. It is perhaps to the mortal writhings of some of the poor birds who were taken captive by that specious lure that all the commotion in the provision market is due, that the face of the public is sharpened against that draco reluctans the West-end tradesman, and that all the world co-operates and becomes its own grocer. The threehundred-a-year fallacy, or any fallacy in any way approximating to it, I was in no danger of falling into. I had plumbed the capabilities of £500 a-year. I knew that income was barely sufficient for my own somewhat frugal wants-how, then, was it to do for two, even with grievous sacrifices on both sides? "I think you can scarcely miss the