With which Mr. Warden disrobed and went to bed.

Next evening, at half-past eight, Tom Maxwell made his appearance at Mrs. Walters, only to find his _fides Achates_ there enthroned before him, and basking in the sunshine of the lovely Fanny's smiles. How long he had been there Tom couldn't guess; but he and Fanny and Mrs. Walters were just settling it to go to the theatre the following night. There was a bunch of roses, pink-and-white, his gift, Tom felt in his bones, in Fanny's hand, and into which she plunged her pretty little nose every five seconds. It was adding insult to injury, the manifest delight that aggravating girl felt in his friend's society; and Tom ground his teeth inwardly, and could have seen Paul Warden guillotined, there and then, with all the pleasure in life.

That evening, and many other evenings which succeeded were but a repetition of the first. An easy flow of delightful small talk, music, singing, and reading aloud. Yes, Paul Warden read aloud, as if to goad that unhappy Tom to open madness, in the most musical of masculine voices, out of little blue-and-gold books, Tennyson, and Longfellow, and Owen Meredith; and Fanny would sit in breathless earnestness, her color coming and going, her breath fluttering, her eyes full of tears as often as not, fixed on Paul's classic profile. Tom didn't burst out openly--he made no scene; he only sat and glowered in malignant silence--and that is saying everything for his power of self-control.

Two months passed; hot weather was coming, and Fanny begun to talk of the heat and the dust of the town; of being home-sick, for the sight of green fields, new milk, strawberry-patches, new-laid eggs, and pa and ma. It had been a very delightful two months, no doubt; and she had enjoyed Mr. Warden's society very much, and gone driving and walking with him, and let him take her to the theatre, and the opera, and played for him, and sung for him, and danced with him, and accepted his bouquets, and new music, and blue-and-gold books; but, for all that, it was evident she could leave him and go home, and still exist.

"It's all very nice," Miss Summers had said, tossing back her black ringlets; "and I have enjoyed this spring ever so much, but still I'm glad to get home again. One grows tired of balls, and parties, and the theatre, you know, after awhile, Mr. Warden; and I am only a little country-girl, and I shall be just as glad as ever for a romp over the meadows, and a breezy gallop across the hills once more. If you or Mr.

Maxwell," glancing at that gloomy youth sideways out of her curls, "care much for fishing, and come up our way any time this summer, I'll try and treat you as well as you have treated me."

"But you haven't treated us well, Miss Fanny," Mr. Warden said, looking unspeakable things. "You take our hearts by storm, and then break them ruthlessly by leaving us. What sort of treatment do you call that?"

Miss Summers only laughed, and looked saucy; and danced away, leaving her two admirers standing together out in the cold.

"Well, Tom," Mr. Warden said, "and so the game's up, the play played out, the curtain ready to fall. The star actress departs to-morrow--and now, what do you think of the performance?"

"Not much," responded Tom, moodily. "I can't see that you have kept your promise. You've made love to her, I allow, _con amore_, confoundedly as if you meant it, in fact; but I don't see where the jilting comes in; I can't see where's my revenge."

"Don't you?" said Paul, thoughtfully lighting his cigar. "Well, come to think of it, I don't either. To tell you the truth, I haven't had a chance to jilt her. I may be irresistible, and I have no doubt I am, since you say so; but, somehow, the charm don't seem to work with our little favorite. Here I have been for the last two months just as captivating as I know how; and yet there's that girl ready to be off to-morrow to the country, without so much as a crack in the heart that should be broken in smithereens. But still," with a sudden change of voice, and slapping him lightly on the shoulder, "dear old boy, I don't despair of giving you your revenge yet!"

Tom lifted his gloomy eyes in sullen inquiry.

"Never mind now," said Paul Warden airily; "give me a few weeks longer.

Lazy as I am, I have never failed yet in anything I have seriously undertaken; and, upon my word, I'm more serious about this matter than you may believe. Trust to your friend, and wait."

That was all Mr. Warden would deign to say.

Tom, not being able to do otherwise, took him at his word, dragged out existence, and waited for his cherished revenge.

Miss Summers left town next day, and Tom, poor, miserable fellow, felt as if the sun had ceased to shine, and the scheme of the universe become a wretched failure, when he caught the last glimmer of the lustrous black eyes, the last flutter of the pretty black curls. But his Damon was by his side to slap him on the back and cheer him up.

"Courage, old fellow!" cried Mr. Warden; "all's not lost that's in danger. Turn and turn about; your turn next."

But, somehow, Tom didn't care for revenge any more. He loved that wicked, jilting little Fanny as much as ever; and the heartache only grew worse day after day; but he ceased to desire vengeance. He settled down into a kind of gentle melancholy, lost his appetite, and his relish for Tom and Jerrys, and took to writing despondent poetry for the weekly journals. In this state Mr. Warden left him, and suddenly disappeared from town. Tom didn't know where he had gone, and his landlady didn't know; and stranger still, his bootmaker and tailor, to whom he was considerably in arrears, didn't know either. But they were soon enlightened.

Five weeks after his mysterious disappearance came a letter and a newspaper, in his familiar hand, to Tom, while he sat at breakfast. He opened the letter first and read:

IN THE COUNTRY.

"DEAR OLD BOY--I have kept my word--you are avenged gloriously.

Fanny will never jilt you, nor any one else again!"

At this passage in the manuscript, Tom Maxwell laid it down, the cold perspiration breaking out on his face. Had Paul Warden murdered her, or worse, had he married her? With a desperate clutch Tom seized the paper, tore it open, looked at the list of marriages, and saw his worst fears realized. There it was, in printers' ink, the atrocious revelation of his bosom friend's perfidy.

"Married, on the fifth inst., at the residence of the bride's father, Paul Warden, Esq., of New York to Miss Fanny Summers, second daughter of Mr. John Summers, of this town."

There it was. Tom didn't faint; he swallowed a scalding cup of coffee at a gulp, and revived, seized the letter and finished it.

"You see, old fellow, paradoxical as it sounds, although I was the conqueror, I was, also, the conquered. Fanny had fallen in love with me, as you foresaw, but I had fallen in love with her also, which you didn't foresee. I might jilt her, of course, but that would be cutting off my own nose to spite my friend's face; and so--I didn't! I did the next best thing for you, though,--I married her! and I may mention, in parenthesis, I am the happiest of mankind; and as Artemus Ward remarks, 'My wife says so too.'

"Adieu, my boy. We'll come to town next week, where Fan and I will be delighted to have you call. With best regards from my dear little wife, I am, old fellow,

"Your devoted friend,

"PAUL WARDEN."

Mr. and Mrs. Warden did come to town next week; but Mr. Maxwell didn't call. In point of fact he hasn't called since, and doesn't intend to, and has given his friend Paul the "cut direct." And that is how Paul Warden got a wife, and Tom Maxwell his revenge.

FOR BETTER FOR WORSE.

"And all is gone?"

"Why, no, sir; no, Mr. Fletcher--not all. There's that six hundred a year, and that little place down at Dover, that you settled on your wife; you will save that out of the wreck. A trifle--a mere nothing, I am aware, out of such a noble inheritance as yours, Mr. Fletcher--but still something. Half a loaf you know, sir, is--"

He stopped abruptly at a motion of Richard Fletcher's hand. He was a lawyer, and used to this sort of thing; and not much effected by the story, he had run down from New York to tell Mr. Fletcher; his rich client had speculated rashly, and lost--a common case enough. A week ago he was worth half a million; to-night he is not worth a sixpence--that was all. There were his wife's settlements, of course; but they were his wife's--and Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher were two.

"I thought I had better let you know at once, Mr. Fletcher," the lawyer said; "it's sure to be in everybody's mouth to-morrow. And now, if I'm to catch the nine-fifty up-train, I had better be starting. Good-night, sir. Worse luck now, better next time."

"Good-night," Richard Fletcher said, mechanically. He was leaning against the low, iron gateway, his folded arms lying on its carved top, and the black shadows of the beeches shutting him in like a pall. Up the avenue colored lamps gleamed along the chestnut walks, blue, red, and green, turning the dark November night to fairy-land. The wide front of the stately mansion was all aglow with illumination, with music, and flowers, and fair women; and fairest, where all were fair, its proud young mistress, Marian Fletcher.

Two men, stragglers from the ball-room, with their cigars lighted, came down through the gloom, close to the motionless figure against the iron gate--only another shadow among the shadows--so close that he heard every word.

"Rather superb style of thing, all this," one said. "When Dick Fletcher does this sort of thing, he does do it. Wonderful luck he's had, for a poor devil, who five years ago hadn't a rap; and that wife of his--magnificent Marian--most lovely thing the sun shines on."

"Too lovely, my friend, for--she's ice."

"Ah! To her husband? Married him for his fortune, didn't she? The old story, very poor, very proud; and sold to the highest bidder. Craymore stood to win there once, didn't he?"

"It was a desperate flirtation--an engagement, the knowing ones do say; but Capt. Craymore knows better than to indulge in such a luxury as a penniless wife. So Fletcher came along, made rich by a sudden windfall, and she's Mrs. Fletcher to-night; and more beautiful and queenly than ever. I watched her dancing with Craymore half an hour ago, and--Well, I didn't envy Fletcher, if he is worth half a million. Let's go back to the house, it's beginning to rain."

"Suppose Fletcher were to lose his fortune--what then?"

"My good fellow, he would lose his wife in the same hour. Some women there are who would go with their husbands to beggary--and he's a fine fellow, too, is Fletcher; but not the lovely Marian. There, the rain begins!"

The shadow among the beeches stood stiller than stone. A long, low wind worried the trees, and the rain beat its melancholy drip, drip. Half an hour, an hour, two, passed, but the figure leaning against the iron-gate was as still as the iron itself. But slowly he stirred at last, became conscious he was dripping, and passed slowly out of the rainy gloom, and up the lamplit-avenue, and into the stately home, that, after to-night, would be his no more.

Another half-hour, and he was back in the glitter and dazzle and music of the brilliant suit of drawing-rooms, his wet garments changed, the fixed whiteness of his face telling but little of his sudden blow. He had not been missed; his radiant three months' bride shone there in diamonds, and laces, and roses resplendent--and who was to think of the rich Fletcher! "Only a clod," whom she had honored by marrying. Capt.

Craymore was by her side, more fascinating than ever. How could she find time to think of any one so plebeian as the underbred rich man she had married, by his entrancing side?

But it was all over at last. The "lights were fled, the garlands dead,"

and Mrs. Fletcher up in her dressing-room, in the raw morning light, was under the hands of her maid. She lay back among the violet-velvet cushions, languid and lovely, being disrobed, and looked round with an irritated flush at the abrupt entrance of the master of the house. He did not often intrude; since the first few weeks of their marriage he had been a model husband, and kept his place. Therefore, Mrs. Fletcher looked surprised, as well as annoyed now.

"Do you wish to speak to me, Mr. Fletcher?" she asked, coldly; for after an evening with Capt. Craymore she was always less tolerant of her _bourgeois_ husband.