Ruth's mind was fertile soil; for a long time to come it would be something of a hothouse: green things would spring up and blossom overnight. The windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, their floors a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels were of a class apart. Bulging out more in the middle than at the two extremities, it resembled an enormous cask set on its end, —a sort of Heidelberg tun on a large scale,—and this resemblance was increased by the small circular aperture—it hardly deserved to be called a door—pierced, like the bung-hole of a barrell, through the side of the structure, at some distance from the ground, and approached by a flight of wooden steps. ‘What is this fate?’ ‘Un mariage of no distinction. "What is your name?" To-day, however, he broke the monotony. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into a minute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa, and a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers. “A wonderful piece of work,” he declared. And where was that devil? Had the soldiers found him? She could not think he had escaped, for she had only just made it into the passage as they entered the library. The next weekend arrived and she made her decision. “I rue the day I ever met you, Sebastianus. " Spurlock grew limp in his chair.