CHAPTER VI.
Dr.Staines and Mrs.Staines visited France, Switzerland, and the Rhine, and passed a month of Elysium before they came to London to face their real destiny and fight the battle of life.
And here, methinks, a reader of novels may perhaps cry out and say, "What manner of man is this, who marries his hero and heroine, and then, instead of leaving them happy for life, and at rest from his uneasy pen and all their other troubles, flows coolly on with their adventures ?" To this I can only reply that the old English novel is no rule to me, and life is; and I respectfully propose an experiment.

Catch eight old married people, four of each sex, and say unto them, "Sir," or "Madam, did the more remarkable events of your life come to you before marriage or after ?" Most of them will say "after," and let that be my excuse for treating the marriage of Christopher Staines and Rosa Lusignan as merely one incident in their lives; an incident which, so far from ending their story, led by degrees to more striking events than any that occurred to them before they were man and wife.
They returned, then, from their honey tour, and Staines, who was methodical and kept a diary, made the following entry therein:-- "We have now a life of endurance, and self-denial, and economy, before us; we have to rent a house, and furnish it, and live in it, until professional income shall flow in and make all things easy: and we have two thousand five hundred pounds left to do it with." They came to a family hotel, and Dr.Staines went out directly after breakfast to look for a house.

Acting on a friend's advice, he visited the streets and places north of Oxford Street, looking for a good commodious house adapted to his business.

He found three or four at fair rents, neither cheap nor dear, the district being respectable and rather wealthy, but no longer fashionable.

He came home with his notes, and found Rosa beaming in a crisp peignoir, and her lovely head its natural size and shape, high-bred and elegant.