specimen of a man just past the prime of life, who has been a soldier and a traveller, who liked the society of women, and could always make himself agreeable.

'What a darling girl your Geraldine is,' Lady Vanessa said, and that handsome young fellow, Clement Hope, who is he? Now tell me something about him, won't you; he interests me greatly. There is a picture exactly like him in Venice, I think, or Florence, or somewhere; a picture of a young Venetian painter, I think-just the same kind of eyes, with a figure like that, a figure that gives you the idea somehow of a tall young tree a little bending to the wind, don't you know? Does it strike you so, Captain Marion?'

He is a charming young fellow,' Captain Marion said earnestly. 'He has plenty of talent; but he has led too lazy a life a life up to this; not his fault, I should say, not his fault at all. He is going to turn to now and do

something to make his life useful in some

way.'

'Strikes me he is crossed in love,' said Lady

Vanessa.

Captain Marion smiled.

Well, I believe there was something of the kind,' he said. I hear that he was very fond of Melissa Aquitaine.'

'Not a bit of it,' Lady Vanessa answered. 'Don't you believe a word of that.'

you.'

'Oh! but there was something, I assure

'Was something?' said Lady Vanessa. 'Yes, there may have been half a dozen somethings. I dare say there were. A young man like that does not get to his time of life without having had a good many somethings. But there is nothing now. He does not care about

her now, I can assure you.'

'How do you know?' asked Marion, in

wonder.

'Well, I don't know how I know—by looking at him-I know by observing things. When she comes into the room he hardly

looks up, hardly observes her.

not that. I have quite other

Oh, no! it is

ideas, Captain

Marion, about your young friend. You make your mind easy. It is not the future wife of our dear Montana he cares about. Oh, no!'

Captain Marion looked astonished, and his expression was not exactly that of a man who feels bound to make his mind easy. He looked as if he was not making his mind easy.

'It is Miss Rowan,' Lady Vanessa said, nodding her head at him decisively; 'trust to me for that. What is wrong between them, Captain Marion? You take my word for it; he is in love with Miss Rowan.'

Captain Marion almost started. I don't think,' he said-No, Lady Vanessa, I am sure I am quite sure-you are mistaken.'

'Not a bit of it! Ask any woman who

knows him, and has seen him. She'll tell you the same thing. Ask Miss Rowan. She will tell you. I should not like to ask her. She would think it rude, perhaps; but there is something strange, and I want to set it right, if I can. Yes, Captain Marion, the poor young man is in love with Geraldine, and I tell you what, I'll give you any odds you like that she is in love with him.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

MELISSA'S HONEYMOON.

THE crowning event of Melissa's life had come off. She had attained what ought to have been the very height of her happiness. The wildest dream of her fond fancy had been fulfilled. She was married to Montana. The marriage took place in a church near her father's house, in the northern city, and after the ceremony Montana and his wife stayed for a few days at a quiet watering place forty or fifty miles away. It was not any of the usual resorts of couples on their honeymoon, but a steady-going, rather out of the way place, which fashion had not yet found out. There they remained for a few