Chinese Room," "A Portion of the Grand Staircase"--of such were the
titles underneath the process pictures. And (in all but their
production) each of these was more beautiful than the last.

"That," observed Steel, "happens to be the very article from which I
first got wind of the place, when I was looking about for one. And
now," he added, "I suppose I have cut my own throat! Like the devil, I
have taken you up to a high place-"

It was no word from Rachel that cut him short, but his own taste, with
which she at least had very little fault to find. And Rachel was
critical enough; but her experience was still unripe, and she liked his
view of his possessions, without perceiving how it disarmed her own.

Presently she looked up.

"Now I see how much I should have to gain. But what would you gain?"

The question was no sooner asked than Rachel foresaw the pretty speech
which was its obvious answer. Mr. Steel, however, refrained from making
it.

"I am an oldish man," he said, "and--yes, there is no use in denying
that I am comfortably off. I want a wife; or rather, my neighbors seem
bent upon finding me one; and, if the worst has to come to the worst, I
prefer to choose for myself. Matrimony, however, is about the very last
state of life that I desire, and I take it to be the same with you.
Therefore--to put the cart before the horse--you would suit me ideally.
One's own life would be unaltered, but the Delverton mothers would cease
from troubling, and at the head of my establishment there would be a