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Python Machine
Learning Blueprints
Python Machine Learning
Blueprints
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to

ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the
information contained in this book is sold without warranty,
either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for
any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark

information about all of the companies and products mentioned
in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt
Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: July 2016

Production reference: 1270716

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78439-475-2

www.packtpub.com
Credits

Author Copy Editor

Alexander T. Combs Priyanka Ravi

Reviewer Project Coordinator

Kushal Khandelwal Suzanne Coutinho

Commissioning Editor Proofreader

Kartikey Pandey Safis Editing

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Indexer
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Content Development Editor Production Coordinator

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Technical Editor Cover Work

Abhishek R. Kotian Melwyn Dsa

About the Author
Alexander T. Combs is an experienced data scientist,
strategist, and developer with a background in financial data
extraction, natural language processing and generation, and
quantitative and statistical modeling. He is currently a full-time
lead instructor for a data science immersive program in New
York City.

Writing a book is truly a massive undertaking that would not be

possible without the support of others. I would like to thank my
family for their love and encouragement and Jocelyn for her
patience and understanding. I owe all of you tremendously.
About the Reviewer
Kushal Khandelwal is a data scientist and a full-stack
developer. His interests include building scalable machine
learning and image processing software applications. He is
adept at coding in Python and contributes actively to various
open source projects. He is currently serving as the Head of
technology at Truce.in, a farmer-centric start-up where he
is building scalable web applications to assist farmers.
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Preface
Machine learning is rapidly becoming a fixture in our data-
driven world. It is relied upon in fields as diverse as robotics
and medicine to retail and publishing. In this book, you will
learn how to build real-world machine learning applications step
by step.

Working through easy-to-understand projects, you will learn

how to process various types of data and how and when to
apply different machine learning techniques such as supervised
or unsupervised learning.

Each of the projects in this book provides educational as well as

practical value. For example, you'll learn how to use clustering
techniques to find bargain airfares and how to use linear
regression to find a cheap apartment. This book will teach you
how to use machine learning to collect, analyze, and act on
massive quantities of data in an approachable, no-nonsense
manner.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, The Python Machine Learning Ecosystem, delves into
Python, which has a deep and active developer community, and
many of these developers come from the scientific community
as well. This has provided Python with a rich array of libraries
for scientific computing. In this chapter, we will discuss the
features of these key libraries and how to prepare your
environment to best utilize them.

Chapter 2, Build an App to Find Underpriced Apartments,

guides us to build our first machine learning application, and we
begin with a minimal but practical example: building an
application to identify underpriced apartments. By the end of
this chapter, we will create an application that will make finding
the right apartment a bit easier.

Chapter 3, Build an App to Find Cheap Airfares, demonstrates

how to build an application that continually monitors fare
pricing. Once an anomalous price appears, our app will
generate an alert that we can quickly act on.

Chapter 4, Forecast the IPO Market using Logistic Regression,

shows how we can use machine learning to decide which IPOs
are worth a closer look and which ones we may want to skip.

Chapter 5, Create a Custom Newsfeed, covers how to build a

system that understands your taste in news and will send you a
personally tailored newsletter each day.

Chapter 6, Predict whether Your Content Will Go Viral, examines

some of the most shared content and attempts to find the
common elements that differentiate it from the content that
people are less willing to share.

Chapter 7, Forecast the Stock Market with Machine Learning,

discusses how to build and test a trading strategy. There are
countless pitfalls to avoid when trying to devise your own
system, and it is quite nearly an impossible task. However, it
can be a lot of fun, and sometimes, it can even be profitable.

Chapter 8, Build an Image Similarity Engine, helps you

construct an advanced, image-based, deep learning application.
We will also cover deep learning algorithms to understand why
they are so important and why there is such a hype
surrounding them.

Chapter 9, Build a Chatbot, demonstrates how to construct a

chatbot from scratch. Along the way, you'll learn more about
the history of the field and its future prospects.

Chapter 10, Build a Recommendation Engine, explores the

different varieties of recommendation systems. We'll see how
they're implemented commercially and how they work. We will
also implement our own recommendation engine to find GitHub
repos.
What you need for this
book
All you need is Python 3.x and a desire to build real-world
machine learning projects. You can refer to the detailed
software list provided along with the code files of this book.
Who this book is for
This book targets Python programmers, data scientists, and
architects with a good knowledge of data science and all those
who want to build complete Python-based machine learning
systems.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that
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meaning.

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filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user
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<category>
<pattern>I LIKE TURTLES</pattern>
<template>I feel like this whole <set name="topic">turle</
thing could be a problem. What do you like about them?</te
</category>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

sp = pd.read_csv(r'/Users/alexcombs/Downloads/spy.csv')

sp.sort_values('Date', inplace=True)

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words

that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog
boxes, appear in the text like this: "Right-click on the page and
click on Inspect element."
NOTE
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

TIP
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Errata
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Questions
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Chapter 1. The Python
Machine Learning
Ecosystem
Machine learning is rapidly changing our world. As the
centerpiece of artificial intelligence, it is difficult to go a day
without reading how it will transform our lives. Some argue it
will lead us into a Singularity-style techno-utopia. Others
suggest we are headed towards a techno-pocalypse marked by
constant battles with job-stealing robots and drone death
squads. But while the pundits may enjoy discussing these
hyperbolic futures, the more mundane reality is that machine
learning is rapidly becoming a fixture of our daily lives. Through
subtle but progressive improvements in how we interact with
computers and the world around us, machine learning is quietly
improving our lives.

If you shop at online retailers such as Amazon.com, use

streaming music or movie services such as Spotify or Netflix, or
even just perform a Google search, you have encountered a
machine learning application. The data generated by the users
of these services is collected, aggregated, and fed into models
that improve the services by creating tailored experiences for
each user.

Now is an ideal time to dive into developing machine learning

applications, and as you will discover, Python is an ideal choice
with which to develop these applications. Python has a deep
and active developer community, and many of these developers
come from the scientific community as well. This has provided
Python with a rich array of libraries for scientific computing. In
this book, we will discuss and use a number of these libraries
from this Python scientific stack.

In the chapters that follow, we'll learn step by step how to build
a wide variety of machine learning applications. But before we
begin in earnest, we'll spend the remainder of this chapter
discussing the features of these key libraries and how to
prepare your environment to best utilize them.

We'll cover the following topics in this chapter:

The data science/machine learning workflow

Libraries for each stage of the workflow

Setting up your environment

The data science/machine

learning workflow
Building machine learning applications, while similar in many
respects to the standard engineering paradigm, differs in one
crucial way: the need to work with data as a raw material. The
success of a data project will, in large part, depend on the
quality of the data that you acquired as well as how it's
handled. And because working with data falls into the domain
of data science, it is helpful to understand the data science
workflow:
The process proceeds through these six steps in the following
order: acquisition, inspection and exploration, cleaning and
preparation, modeling, evaluation, and finally deployment.
There is often the need to circle back to prior steps, such as
when inspecting and preparing the data or when evaluating and
modeling, but the process at a high level can be described as
shown in the preceding diagram.

Let's now discuss each step in detail.

Acquisition
Data for machine learning applications can come from any
number of sources; it may be e-mailed as a CSV file, it may
come from pulling down server logs, or it may require building
a custom web scraper. The data may also come in any number
of formats. In most cases, it will be text-based data, but as
we'll see, machine learning applications may just as easily be
built utilizing images or even video files. Regardless of the
format, once the data is secured, it is crucial to understand
what's in the data—as well as what isn't.

Inspection and exploration

Once the data has been acquired, the next step is to inspect
and explore it. At this stage, the primary goal is to sanity-check
the data, and the best way to accomplish this is to look for
things that are either impossible or highly unlikely. As an
example, if the data has a unique identifier, check to see that
there is indeed only one; if the data is price-based, check
whether it is always positive; and whatever the data type,
check the most extreme cases. Do they make sense? A good
practice is to run some simple statistical tests on the data and
visualize it. Additionally, it is likely that some data is missing or
incomplete. It is critical to take note of this during this stage as
it will need to be addressed it later during the cleaning and
preparation stage. Models are only as good as the data that
goes into them, so it is crucial to get this step right.

Cleaning and preparation

When all the data is in order, the next step is to place it in a
format that is amenable to modeling. This stage encompasses a
number of processes such as filtering, aggregating, imputing,
and transforming. The type of actions that are necessary will be
highly dependent on the type of data as well as the type of
library and algorithm utilized. For example, with natural-
language-based text, the transformations required will be very
different from those required for time series data. We'll see a
number of examples of these types of transformations
throughout the book.

Modeling
Once the data preparation is complete, the next phase is
modeling. In this phase, an appropriate algorithm is selected
and a model is trained on the data. There are a number of best
practices to adhere to during this stage, and we will discuss
them in detail, but the basic steps involve splitting the data into
training, testing, and validation sets. This splitting up of the
data may seem illogical—especially when more data typically
yields better models—but as we'll see, doing this allows us to
get better feedback on how the model will perform in the real
world, and prevents us from the cardinal sin of modeling:
overfitting.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 “What, at this hour!” he exclaimed, standing at the top of the steps,
gazing after two figures who were rapidly disappearing in the
direction of the garden. “Small chance of a tête-à-tête with Alice to-
night,” he said to himself as he pulled his moustache thoughtfully.
Five minutes later, Geoffrey came running back alone;
breathlessly he jerked out: “Such a trick as I’ve played her! She
offered to race me to the big pear-tree, each starting from the
garden-gate, and going one north the other south; I agreed, and
when I saw her well started south I just came home! What a state
she will be in when she finds herself alone at the end of the ghost-
walk! She says she is not, but I believe she is, horribly afraid of
ghosts and bogies; and if she meets the cavalier who is said to stalk
about the garden won’t it be fun? I only wish I had thought of it in
time, I’d have dressed up. It pays her off nicely for some of the pretty
little jokes she has practised on me. It’s not too late yet”—snatching
up a shawl and a garden-hat and commencing a toilet.
“I can’t say that I exactly see the humour of the situation,” said
Reginald, as, springing down the steps and vaulting lightly over an
iron railing, he set off by a short cut to the garden at a run.
“Active fellow, is he not?” observed Geoffrey, removing the shawl
in which he had already enveloped himself. “But this alacrity in
joining his wife, in the present overcharged state of the domestic
atmosphere, is something quite new. The sky is not going to fall, is
it?” he added, looking up interrogatively.
“No; but really, Geoffrey, you shouldn’t have left her,” remonstrated
Helen. “The garden is an awful eerie place by moonlight, I should not
care to take a solitary walk there myself.”

The pear-tree, which was to have been the goal, was the pear-tree
par excellence of the whole garden; it was trained along a wall
covered with fruit-trees, beneath which ran a broad gravel terrace,
approached by several flights of steps, one of which was exactly
opposite this particular tree.
 Alice, breathless and triumphant, had arrived first at the foot of the
steps. She looked up and down the broad walk; no sign of Geoffrey.
“How very odd,” she thought.
Presently she heard his rapidly-approaching footsteps, and,
mounting the terrace, began to gather pears with much deliberation.
Hearing him arrive, she never troubled to turn her head, merely
remarking as she reached up for a lovely, yellow, corpulent pear:
“Snail! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I could trundle a
wheelbarrow faster than you can run.”
“Could you indeed?” replied her husband, putting his arm round
her slender waist.
“Geoffrey, how dare——Reginald!” she gasped, dropping all the
pears.
“I may dare, may I not?” said he, taking her in his arms and giving
her twenty kisses. “Look here,” said he, smiling at her indignant eyes
and crimson cheeks, “I’ve just had a letter from you, my darling,”
producing the letter and hurriedly telling her the story.
“And the other one I wrote to Afghanistan?” she asked
breathlessly.
“That I never heard of till now; the Afridis made short work of our
letters.”
“Then you have never had a line from me till to-day?” she cried,
backing towards the wall and looking at him with dilated eyes.
“Never, since I left Cannes.”
“Then oh, Regy, what must you have thought of me?”
“Just what I have been asking myself, what can you have thought
of me? No wonder you called me harsh, cruel, and tyrannical; such
names were too mild a term for me. What an unmanly, vindictive
wretch I must have appeared! And you, you richly deserve the name
of the ‘patient Grizzel.’ Don’t you think so?” drawing her towards him
by both hands. “Come, tell me what you thought of me for never
answering your letter.”
 Too overwhelmed to speak, she stood dumb before him, with both
her little trembling hands in his.
“You can’t think,” he went on, “how I hoped and hoped for even
one line, after that Cheetapore affair had been cleared up. Surely
then I learnt that ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’”
Seeing the ready tears in Alice’s eyes he stopped.
“Why, you little goose, you are never going to cry now, are you? It
was not your fault I did not get your letter. I have it safe now, and I
am the happiest man in England this instant; that is to say,” lowering
his voice almost to a whisper, “if you will forgive me, Alice, and if you
love me still?”
“Forgive you!” she echoed, speaking with an effort, “it is for you to
forgive me. Do forgive me,” she pleaded, with lovely beseeching
eyes; “it cost me more than you. My punishment seemed at times
greater than I could bear.”
At the mere recollection of what she had endured, two large tears
that could no longer be suppressed escaped from her eyelashes,
and rolled down her pale cheeks.
“My Alice, my love, you were forgiven long, long ago; only it
seemed to me, till now, that you did not want my forgiveness. You
would not speak, and I could not; I tied my hands most effectually
that day on Southsea pier. And, after all, Alice, you would not have
respected me if I had not required some apology, or if I had tendered
you a forgiveness you had never asked for, after the way you broke
up our home and turned me adrift. No, my darling,” in answer to a
piteous look, “I am not scolding you. I never, never will be rough or
rude to you again, if you will promise to forgive me for the barbarous
way I have treated you lately. When I think of the thousand-and-one
rudenesses I’ve been guilty of—intentionally too—I feel that I am
asking a great deal. If I had only your capacity for blushing, you
would see how thoroughly ashamed I feel. Am I to be forgiven?”
leaning towards her.
“Of course you are.”
 “And,” speaking still more earnestly, “you like me a little in spite of
all?”
A deep blush was his only answer for some seconds; then, with an
effort, she raised her truthful eyes to his, and said:
“You know I do; you need not have asked. It is,” she pursued, with
emotion, “far more a question whether—whether you care for me. I
know you never will, never can, as you once did; but it has seemed
to me at times that you almost hated me.”
“Indeed?” with a beaming smile long foreign to his countenance; “I
see you are more easily imposed upon than ever. You know very
well, it is patent to even Geoffrey, that I have always loved you
exactly three times better than you love me. It is not in your nature to
love as I do, though I never make much fuss about my feelings; still
you may as well know that you are more to me, ten times over, than
anything in the world. Even at the worst of times it has always been
the same. What troubled me most, when I thought I was dying, was,
not my many sins and shortcomings, not the thought of a future
world, not what ought to come first with all of us, my soul; no, it was
you, that I might only see you once more, even for an instant, was
the prayer, the thought, that never left me night or day. I will not
conceal from you, Alice, that I did my very best to stifle recollection,
to forget you, to throw my whole heart into my profession. It was no
good; nothing, not a draught of the Egyptian nepenthe itself would
have banished you from my heart. When I first went to India I used to
take long headlong rides, half in hopes of galloping away from my
thoughts, half in hopes of killing myself. I sometimes think I was a
little mad then.”
“Reginald, you must have been,” she exclaimed with conviction.
“Yes; you don’t half know how miserable I’ve been without you.
Well, I quieted down in time, and when the fighting came off I took it
out of myself in that way. But wherever I was, you were seldom
absent from my mind; whether alone in my quarters, or sitting round
a noisy camp fire, or on a still starry night, on the line of march, your
face was ever before me. As to never caring for you as before, I
believe I love you better—yes, better than when we were first
married; though had anyone suggested such a possibility at the time,
I would have throttled him on the spot. But do not,” he continued with
a smile, “spread the fact among the young married ladies of your
acquaintance; they might try and follow your example, with scarcely
such happy results. Lovers’ quarrels are not always the renewing of
love.”
“How can you joke on such a subject, Regy?” she asked almost
inarticulately.
“Well, then, I’ll be serious once more. Never, as long as you live,
doubt my love for you, Alice. Do you believe in it now?”
“I do,” she whispered, “and you have made me very, very happy.”
“Then you can’t refuse to make me happy! You have not given me
one kiss yet, remember, and you have three years’ arrears to make
up. To begin with, I’ll take the one you offered me the other night
now.”
“I daresay you will,” she replied demurely, with a spice of her old
spirit. “Have you ever heard, ‘He that will not when he may,’ etc.?
And you took quite enough just now to last you for a long time,” she
added, with a deep blush.
“You are not going to put me on allowance, are you? I tell you
plainly I won’t stand it. After offering me a kiss you never can again
pretend you are shy. Now, candidly, can you? I’m afraid you are a
little impostor,” quietly insinuating his arm round her waist.
“I see you are as great a tease as ever, at any rate, Reginald,” she
exclaimed tragically. “If you ever dare to allude to my foolish, idiotical
offer, I won’t say what I shall do to you. I am not an impostor, and
you know very well I am shy; you often said it—it——”
“Well, go on, I would not commence a sentence I was afraid to
finish if I were you!”
“Well, that it was my only fault—there!”
“And so it was; and as you are cured now of course you are
perfect.”
 A silence. At length she said:
“Were you really going away to-morrow, Regy?”
“Yes, indeed I was. I have been lingering on here from day to day,
hoping for one little word, just one, and it did not come. I would have
gone back into the world a hard, embittered, cynical man. You smile,
you think I am that already?”
“Tell me, Regy, will you be the very same Regy I knew of old, and
will the rude, cold, stern guardian I have met lately, and—I tell you in
confidence that I am a little afraid of—will he go?”
“He will,” replied her husband, with quiet decision. “He will take his
departure along with the haughty young lady with whom he gets on
so well. Are you sorry? Are you sorry to lose your guardian and find
your husband?”
“Sorry!” she repeated, taking the flower out of his button-hole with
the calmest air of rightful appropriation. “Do I look sorry? By-the-way,
for the third time of asking, you may as well give me my wedding-
ring”—fastening the flower in the front of her dress, and holding out a
small white palm. “How glad I shall be to see it again,” she
exclaimed, as she eagerly watched him disengaging it from his
chain.
“Here it is,” handing it to her; “it is a travelled ring.”
“Let me see”—turning it to the moonlight and scrutinising it closely
—“if it is my own. Yes, there is the ‘R. A.’ entwined. Now please to
put it on.”
“Alice,” he said, taking her little ring-less hand in his and slipping it
on her finger, “remember, you are not to remove it again.”
“I never will, you may be very sure, as long as I live, and when I
die it shall be buried with me. See, it is quite too big for me now,”
holding up her hand.
“It is indeed,” he reluctantly owned to himself, as he looked at the
fragile, almost transparent fingers held up for his inspection. An
agonising thought flitted through his brain and turned his heart, as it
were, to ice. “Had he gained her but to lose her after all?”
 “Why do you shiver?” cried Alice gaily. “Why do you look so odd—
you are not ill, are you?”
“Ill? Not I!” recovering himself with an effort. “It is probably your
friend the goose walking over my grave.”
“Don’t talk of graves,” she said with a shudder, drawing nearer to
him involuntarily, and laying her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t
know,” she added in a low voice, “what a good wife I am going to be.
You have given me back my wedding-ring, and in return I promise
solemnly to be truthful, loving, and obedient as long as I live. Nothing
but death can ever come between us now,” she added tremulously,
as, stealing her arm round his neck, she gave him the tenderest and
shyest of kisses.
“You little witch!” he exclaimed, returning it with interest. “Do you
know that that is almost the first kiss you have ever given me of your
own accord, Lady Fairfax? What a change a few hours can make in
one’s life! This morning, mine seemed so empty, so cheerless; just
what it has been for the last three years. I had no one to look after, or
care about much, except myself, and I am not very fond of myself;
sometimes, I know all my faults quite as well, nay, far better than you
do.”
“What are they?” she asked with a smile. “Let us compare notes.”
“I am determined to the verge of obstinacy, and beyond it. Proud
to a degree little short of insanity. Overbearing, supercilious,
tenacious, I would die sooner than yield, once I have made up my
mind that I am in the right. If I had been less blinded by my pride, I
would have written to you when Maurice was born, and saved us
both two long miserable years. How can I ever make amends to you,
my darling? How can I ever overtake these years I have left you
alone?”
“Hush!” she said, “you must not abuse yourself. It has been all my
fault from first to last; it is only like you to take the blame, but you
know very well it all lies at my door. But, indeed, indeed I have been
punished, and justly punished! I ought to have trusted you, Reginald;
if I had followed my first impulse I would have spared myself many a
bitter tear. I seem to have been under some malign influence, and to
have had an absolute vocation for making you and myself miserable,
that awful winter that seems so many years ago. Since then, Time
has crawled by and brought no remedies for me—a blank empty
future, and nothing to look back on but hateful haunting recollections;
only for Maurice I must have gone melancholy mad. You will never
leave me again, will you?
“You won’t go to Looton now?” she added suddenly.
“Yes; in fact I must. I’ll run down there for a few days and see how
everything is getting on, look into the accounts, ride over the home
farm, etc., and tell them to be ready for us at Christmas.”
“At Christmas?” she echoed in amazement.
“Yes. I shall then come back here and take you off abroad for the
next three months. You were talking of Nice the other day: will you
accept me as a companion instead of your aunt? How would you like
to spend the autumn in Italy?”
“And Maurice?”
“Oh, Maurice will be made over to Helen; she will take excellent
care of him. He has had a very good time the last two years; it’s my
turn now. I must have you all to myself, no rivals, small or large,
which is one reason why I don’t want to settle down at home just at
present. We should have nothing but one scene of visiting, feasting,
and mutual entertainments. Whereas, roaming about abroad, we can
scorn all social claims, spend our time as we please, and, if the
worst comes to the worst, pretend we are bride and bridegroom. If
you are a good girl and get strong and well by Christmas I shall bring
you home again; if not, I shall take you on to Egypt.”
“Egypt!” she echoed. “Why Egypt? And why do you sigh, Regy,
and look at me so wistfully?” she asked, raising her gray eyes to his
fond dark ones, that seemed to brim over with a look of anguish she
could not understand.
“I did not sigh,” he replied mendaciously. “And why not go to
Egypt? You know you have always had a craving to out-travel Helen
and to see the old Nile. Come, it is getting late, I cannot let you stay
out any longer; the dew is falling, you must go in.”
“Ah! I see you have had enough of me already,” she replied with a
pretty little shrug. “Tell me, Regy, who have you got in this locket?—
you never used to wear one.”
“Who do you think—are you jealous? A Begum who took rather a
fancy to me,” he said, opening the case and revealing herself. “As
long as I had the original I never wore it of course. I believe this
locket is a kind of talisman; it has been twice into action, for I never
left it out of my possession night or day.”
They were slowly promenading up and down the centre garden-
walk, now stopping for an instant, now again going on, this time very,
very leisurely, as it was the very last turn they were to take. On this
point Reginald was resolute, although he grudged sorely to shorten
the happiest hour he had known for years. Oblivious of all the world,
and absorbed in each other, they were approaching the gate, which
suddenly burst open, and Geoffrey, singing, “Alice, where art thou?”
appeared.
“I’ve been sent,” he shouted, “to know if you mean to roost in the
pear-tree? Where are the pears?” he added imperiously. “Why,
what’s all this? I do believe,” looking from one to the other, “that you
two have buried the hatchet, come off the war-path, and smoked the
pipe of peace!”
“Yes, wise and observant Geoffrey, you are right for once. We
have been the victims of an unfortunate accident that has cost us
both very dearly,” replied Reginald gravely.
“Hip, hip, hurrah!” cried Geoffrey, dancing a war-dance round
them, concluding with three wild bounds into the air.
“I really must embrace you, my dear Regy. You know I’d twice as
soon have you as Alice.” So saying he flung himself on Reginald à la
Française.
“No no, my dear fellow, you really must excuse me,” pushing him
back. “If you must kiss somebody, you may kiss Alice; and for your
kind congratulations, conveyed, I presume, by those wild evolutions
just now, receive my warmest thanks. Also,” he added more
seriously, “for all your well-meant but unsuccessful endeavours to
reconcile us, all the tête-à-tête rides and walks you contrived. Only
you are not an old woman, you would make a superb chaperone.”
A less shrewd observer than Geoffrey could see that this assumed
gaiety covered a deeper emotion Reginald could hardly conceal.
“Well, here, Alice, is a kiss for you, by your lord and master’s kind
permission.”
“Imagine you have had it, it will do as well,” cried Alice, waving him
away with both hands.
“All right,” replied Geoffrey, rather huffed. “Imagination is no doubt
better than reality in this particular instance. I always knew if anyone
could manage you, or get you along at all in double harness, it was
our right honourable friend. But you must confess you jibbed
frightfully at starting. Plenty of the whip, that’s what you all want.

‘A woman, a dog, and a walnut-tree,

The more you beat them the better they be.’

Isn’t that so?”

“Geoffrey!” exclaimed Alice, “have you taken leave of your senses!
If people were to see you whooping and springing about they would
certainly think we kept a private lunatic asylum, and that you were
one of our most dangerous patients. Do be cautious, the moon is at
the full!”
Reginald having started off to fetch the pears, Geoffrey watched
him out of sight, and then said: “Alice, my good girl, seriously and
soberly, I never was so glad of anything in all my life. He is the best
fellow I ever knew, and ten times too good for you.”
“No one knows that better than myself,” she replied meekly, to
Geoffrey’s unbounded surprise.
 “Good-night, Geoff; I’m going. Tell him to tell them; I couldn’t,” she
added, vanishing through the gateway.
“Alice has gone, Rex,” said Geoffrey, “and you are to break it
gently to the family. No one could eat pears now: leave them on the
garden-seat and come along. You and Alice are the only pair they
will think of to-night.”
In a few minutes they had rejoined the party in the pleasure-
ground.
“Well, what has kept you? Have you brought the pears?” inquired
Helen, languidly.
“No; but I have brought you a piece of good news instead. You can
guess what it is, can you not?”
“I can, my dear Regy,” she replied, rising hastily—her active mind
having grasped the truth in one second—and kissing him with
effusion. “I know there is only one thing that could make you look so
happy. Where is Alice?”
“This,” said Geoffrey with mock gravity, taking Reginald’s unwilling
hand, “is Petruchio. Katharina has retired. In plain English, Alice was
too bashful to return here, and desired me to accept your
congratulations as her deputy. I’ve no doubt, Helen, that you and
Miss Ferrars will find her in her room.”
Helen and Miss Ferrars were not long in acting on this hint, and
found Alice sitting in the window-sill in the moonlight, leisurely
unplaiting her long, golden-brown plaits. She received them with
smiles and tears.
“I knew you would come,” she said, throwing herself into Helen’s
arms; “you have always been our good genius. You have heard it all
from him, have you not?” she whispered.
“Only a sketch—a mere outline,” Helen replied, seating herself. “I
have a vague idea that you are going abroad, that I am to have
charge of Maurice, and that we are all to meet at Looton at
Christmas. The moment I saw Regy’s face I knew what had
happened. Dear boy! it does one good to see him looking like
himself once more.”
The three ladies remained talking together till the small hours,
much to the detriment of Alice and Mary’s roses, and the tale of the
lost letter was told and re-told, deplored and discussed, at least ten
times over.
The next morning Reginald started for Looton, and within a week
Sir R. and Lady Fairfax were among the fashionable departures for
the Continent, and the party at Monkswood dispersed, to reunite at
Christmas.
 CHAPTER IX.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

It is the end of the first week in January—bleak, black January!

Outside Looton the snow is falling lightly but persistently; already it is
a foot deep in the park. It is a bitterly cold, dreary, dark evening. Not
a single living creature is abroad that can possibly find shelter. What
a night for the homeless—what a night for the miserable starving
birds!
Inside Looton the prospect is much more cheerful. A huge log fire
is roaring up the chimney of the great hall, lighting up the frames of
dingy-looking portraits, reflecting itself in more than one dinted steel
cuirass and battered casque, and generally illuminating the arms and
armour of many a dead and gone Fairfax.
A large mastiff lies luxuriously at full length on a tiger-skin before
the fire; but of other living inmates the room is empty. The letter-box
stands on the table; no one is looking—let us have a peep. Here is
an epistle from Mrs. Mayhew to Miss Saville, which will doubtless tell
us all the family news.
“Looton, Jan. 5th.
“My dear Miss Saville,
“I am quite ashamed of myself for never having answered
your kind New Year’s letter. But you have no idea what a whirl
we have been living in since Christmas. I never seem to have
a moment to myself.
“Nearly all the party have gone out skating to-day—an
amusement not at all in my line—so at last I have an hour to
devote to my many indignant correspondents.
“You have heard from Alice frequently, of course, and I am
sure she has told you how much we have missed you, and
how disappointed she and Regy have been at your absence.
It is really too bad of your old enemy, rheumatism, to seize on
you just at this time.
“We have had such a Christmas! Reginald and Alice
determined that, as it was the first they had ever spent
together, they would celebrate the occasion properly. There
was a dinner to the tenantry, to whom Maurice was duly
presented in the character of the heir. Theatricals and a ball
entertained the grandees; nor were the poor forgotten—beef,
coals, warm clothes, and money were lavishly bestowed on
every side. The master and mistress of Looton are so happy
themselves, they do their very best to spread that rather
scarce commodity in all directions, and share it with rich and
poor, as far as money and kind words and deeds can go.
“You will like to hear all about Alice and Regy from a third
party, especially as I know how reticent Alice is about herself
—her letters are probably filled with Maurice and Reginald,
Reginald and Maurice.
“Four months in Italy have worked wonders for her. She has
completely recovered her blooming cheeks, her gay spirits,
and, above all, her health. She still looks a mere girl in her
teens, and as little of the matron as ever. I have done my best
to put a stop to her hunting, but it is of no use, especially as
she has Regy’s permission and countenance. He only takes
her when the distances are moderate and the country to
match, and as she is always superbly mounted, and well
looked after and piloted by her husband, I don’t think you
need be nervous; and I must say they both enjoy it so much,
and look so supremely happy when setting out together on a
hunting morning, that it seems almost a pity to make any
more protests.
“Reginald is a changed man—no longer silent, morose, and
cynical; he is my own dear light-hearted Regy once more, and
enters into everything with as much zest and spirit as Geoff
himself. A happier couple than he and Alice could not be
found. It is a pleasure to see them together. She runs a good
chance of being completely spoiled, only for her sweet,
unselfish disposition. She is allowed her own way in
everything. Fortunately it is Reginald’s way too, so there is no
harm done. Their opinions, wishes, and tastes seem to be
identical. Some day or other Alice’s individuality will be
completely lost and absorbed in Reginald’s stronger mind and
will. I tell him this sometimes, and make him extremely angry.
I am keeping our great piece of news to the last, as a bonne
bouche. I am sure you will be interested to know that Captain
Vaughan and Mary Ferrars are engaged. He has been here
since the first week in December, and their happiness is now
of a whole week’s standing. They seem to be very well suited
and mutually in love. He confided to me that it was the
extreme felicity of Reginald and Alice that had encouraged
him to follow their example. This time last year who would
have believed that they would be the couple—of all others—to
lure their friends into matrimony? At times I feared a very
different conclusion. However, they fully bear out the good old
saying, ‘All’s well that ends well.’
“With love and best wishes for the New Year, ever, dear
Miss Saville,
“Yours affectionately,
“Helen Mayhew.”

THE END.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

 Now ready, at all Libraries and
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PALMS AND TEMPLES:

INCIDENTS OF A FOUR MONTHS’ VOYAGE ON

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With Notes upon the Antiquities, Scenery, People, and Sport of
Egypt.
By JULIAN B. ARNOLD.
Prefatory Notice by EDWIN ARNOLD, Author of “The Light of Asia,”
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 “We cannot but congratulate Mr. Arnold on his success as a clever
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“Mr. Arnold’s book is distinctly new, novel, and interesting.”—Land
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