Therefore, Bellew read the paper, and let it be understood that he regarded the daily news-sheet as the last resource of the utterly bored.

Now presently, as he glanced over the paper with a negative interest his eye was attracted by a long paragraph beginning: 

At St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop of——­, Silvia Cecile Marchmont, to His Grace the Duke of Ryde, K.G., K.C.B.

Below followed a full, true, and particular account of the ceremony which, it seemed, had been graced by Royalty.  George Bellew read it half way through, and—­yawned,—­positively, and actually, yawned, and thereafter, laughed.

“And so, I have been in Arcadia—­only three weeks!  I have known Anthea only twenty-one days!  A ridiculously short time, as time goes,—­in any other place but Arcadia,—­and yet sufficient to lay for ever, the—­er—­Haunting Spectre of the Might Have Been.  Lord! what a preposterous ass I was!  Baxter was quite right,—­utterly, and completely right!  Now, let us suppose that this paragraph had read:  ’To-day, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Anthea Devine to—­’ No no,—­confound it!” and Bellew crumpled up the paper, and tossed it into a distant corner.  “I wonder what Baxter would think of me now,—­good old faithful John.  The Haunting Spectre of the Might Have Been,—­What a preposterous ass!—­what a monumental idiot I was!”

“Posterous ass, isn’t a very pretty word, Uncle Porges,—­or continental idiot!” said a voice behind him, and turning, he beheld Small Porges somewhat stained, and bespattered with ink, who shook a reproving head at him.

“True, nephew,” he answered, “but they are sometimes very apt, and in this instance, particularly so.”

Small Porges drew near, and, seating himself upon the arm of Bellew’s chair, looked at his adopted uncle, long, and steadfastly.

“Uncle Porges,” said he, at last, “you never tell stories, do you?—­I mean—­lies, you know.”

“Indeed, I hope not, Porges,—­why do you ask?”

“Well,—­’cause my Auntie Anthea’s ’fraid you do.”

“Is she—­hum!—­Why?”

“When she came to ‘tuck me up,’ last night, she sat down on my bed, an’ talked to me a long time.  An’ she sighed a lot, an’ said she was ’fraid I didn’t care for her any more,—­which was awful’ silly, you know.”

“Yes, of course!” nodded Bellew.

“An’ then she asked me why I was so fond of you, an’ I said ’cause you were my Uncle Porges that I found under a hedge.  An’ then she got more angrier than ever, an’ said she wished I’d left you under the hedge—­”

“Did she, my Porges?”

“Yes; she said she wished she’d never seen you, an’ she’d be awful’ glad when you’d gone away.  So I told her you weren’t ever going away, an’ that we were waiting for the Money Moon to come, an’ bring us the fortune.  An’ then she shook her head, an’ said ’Oh! my dear,—­you mustn’t believe anything he says to you about the moon, or anything else, ‘cause he tells lies,’—­an’ she said ‘lies’ twice!”