John Catt was a rough diamond, as the reader has perceived, given to copious draughts of beer, black pipes, short sticks, prodigious shirt-collars, and music-halls.  But he was a brave, honest, chivalrous lad in his coarse way.  He loved Miss Theodosia Cockayne, and was seriously stricken when he left Paris, although he had tried to throw off the affair with a careless word or two.  He hid his grief behind his bluntness; but she had no tears to hide.  It was only when the Vicomte, after a visit to Clapham (paid much against Mr. Cockayne’s will) had come to business in the plumpest manner, that the young lady had been brought to her senses by the father’s observation that he was not prepared to buy a foreign viscount into the family on his own terms, and that “his lordship” would not take the young lady on her own merits, aroused Miss Theodosia’s pride;—­and with it the chances of John Catt revived.  He took her renewed warmth for repentance after a folly.  He said to himself, “She loved me all the time; and even the Vicomte was not, in the long run, proof against her affection for me.”  Miss Theodosia, having lost the new love, was fortunate enough to get on with the old again, and she is, I hear, reasonably happy—­certainly happier than she deserves to be, as Mrs. John Catt.

I am told she is very severe upon Emma Sharp, and wonders how her sister Carrie can have the creature’s portrait hung up in her morning room.  But there are a few things she no longer wonders at.  Carrie speaks to Lucy Rowe; kisses Lucy Rowe; puts her arm round Lucy Rowe’s neck; and tumbles her baby upon Lucy Rowe’s knees; and Mrs. John Catt wonders no longer.  Not, I suspect, because she is fonder of Lucy now than she was in the Rue Millevoye, but because—­well, I married her, as the reader, who is not a goose, has suspected long ago.

And a little Lucy writes for me, in big round hand, her mother guiding the pen—­

  THE END.

  LONDON: 
  SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
  COVENT GARDEN.