have been lively, Honoria"-I giggled convulsively"lively for me at any rate!"

"No, it wouldn't," she said. "You've no idea how tired you'd have got of being continually drunk! It might be all very well for a time, but you would have wanted a change. And in that period, there was no change possible! A man and his wife had to jog on together for ever and a day-Amen to it!-without a single distraction to mar the domestic bliss of the awful years! Domestic bliss-ugh! it makes me shudder!"

I grew suddenly serious. "Why, surely, Honoria,” I said, "you believe in domestic bliss, don't you?"

"Certainly not! Good gracious, no! What on earth is domestic bliss all about? I've studied it, I assure you. I'll tell you what it is. In winter, the united members of a large family sit solemnly round the fire and roast chestnuts to the tune of 'Home, sweet Home,' played by the youngest boy on the old harmonium (harmonium that belonged to darling dear grandmamma, you know!); in summer they all go down to the sea-side (still fondly united) and sit in a ring on the hot sand, reading antediluvian novels, quite happy! and so good, and so devoted to one another, and so ugly, most of them; no wonder they can never get any other company than their own!"

She puffed away at her cigar quite fiercely, and her

eyes twinkled again. As for me, I was off once more in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"Honoria, Honoria!" I gasped, "what a droll girl you are; where do you get your ideas from?"

"Can't imagine," she replied smilingly. "They come. Inspiration, I suppose, as the towzle-haired 'geniuses' say. But I am jolly-I believe there's no denying that. You'll find me quite a good fellow, don't you know, when you've once got accustomed to my ways. But I may as well tell you at once that it's no use your expecting me to give up my smoke. It's possible I may get tired of shooting; when I do I'll let you know. And one word more, old boy-don't preach at me again, will you? Can't bear being preached at; never could. Say right out what you mean without sentiment, and we'll see how we can settle it. I never lose temperwaste of time. Much better to come to a calm understanding about everything-think so?"

I agreed heartily, and would have kissed her, but that vile cigar stuck out of her mouth and prevented me. Besides, I was smoking my own particular "vile" and it was no use disturbing myself or her just then. Moreover, did she not evince a wholesome dislike of sentiment? And is not kissing a sentimental business, totally unsuited to the advanced intelligence of the advanced woman of our advancing day?

CHAPTER III.

HONEYMOONS are generally supposed to be the briefest of all moons, and mine was particularly so, as it only lasted a fortnight. I will not here attempt to describe the chronic state of wonder, doubt, affection, dismay, admiration, and vague alarm in which I passed it. It seemed to me that I was all the time in the company of a very cheerful good-tempered lad just home from his college for the holidays. I knew this "lad" was a woman and my wife, but somehow, as the Americans say, I couldn't "fix" it. At the end of our recognized "spooney" season, we returned to our own house in Kensington, a comfortable dwelling, luxuriously furnished, and provided with all the modern improvements, electric light included, and settled down to the serious realization of our married existence. We had hosts of friends; too many friends, I thought. We certainly could not boast of a "quiet" home, neither could we be accused of indulging in the guilty tameness of "domestic bliss." All "the boys" fraternized with me; those "boys" who before Honoria's marriage had been, she assured me, like so many brothers to her. They were most of them young men, none of them

above thirty, and I was approaching my fortieth birthday. Moreover, I had the sundry cares of the business of living upon me; the "Battle of Life" (I have to thank the noble Daily Telegraph for this admirable and entirely new expression) had to be fought by me single-handed, and this gave me the appearance of being older than I actually was. In fact "the boys" seemed to consider me a sort of harmless paterfamilias; but I myself often wondered whether I was not more like the meek proprietor of an exceptionally convenient hotel, where bachelors under thirty might find board, lodging and good entertainment, free of charge. At first, I did not feel my position so keenly, because really "the boys" were not bad fellows.

They were like young colts, frisky and full of fun. They were fools undoubtedly, but they were not knaves, and to this day I don't think there was an ounce of wit among them, so that they lacked the means to be seriously mischievous; in fact there was no malice about them, they were too absolutely silly for that-more like Brobdingnagian babies than men. They had a great many old associations with Honoria. Many of them had known her long before I did, and one of these declared to me joyously that "it was no end of a lark, dontcherknow, to think she was married!" I would have sought an explanation from this vivacious and muscular youth (he was over six feet high) as to his reasons for considering it "no end

of a lark" but that he was such an utterly brainless "boy," such a cheerfully-confessed and openly-advertized donkey, that I saw at once it would be no use asking him any questions that did not lead up somehow or other to a discussion on lawn-tennis, which was the only subject in earth or heaven that appealed to his minute fragment of intellect. There was just one other individual who surpassed him in fatuous foolishness; this was a "boy" with heavy moustaches, whose sole delight in life was to "scull." Sculling up and down the river, sculling here, sculling there (with a very useless skull of his own, Heaven knows! excuse the unintentional pun), his pride and joy were concentrated in the steady work of strengthening his muscles and reducing his brain by swift degrees from the little to the infinitely less. He had fine eyes, this "boy," and his moustaches, "long, silky and sweeping" (vide "Ouida"), threw all little school girls and inexperienced housemaids into ecstasies of admiration. He looked very well in his white boating flannels; so well, that he was, by some rash persons who did not know him, judged intelligent, but, to speak with exactitude, a more hopeless idiot never existed. He was such an overpoweringly polite idiot too, exceedingly deferential to me, and automatically courteous to every one, though he always maintained that delightfully funny air of coy reserve which very good-looking young men sometimes assume, that air which is meant as a