angry flash of her eyes. "It keeps me up.
I require stimulants. Don't you remember
the doctor said I required stimulants?"

"Apropos of doctors," said the vicar,
with an amused smile, "you have not asked
after little Plew."

"Oh, poor little Plew! What is he
doing?" asked Veronica. She had
subsided again into her nonchalant air,
temporarily interrupted by the flash of temper,
and asked after Mr. Plew with the tolerant
condescension of a superior being.

"What-a is Ploo?" demanded the
prince.

The vicar explained. And, being cheered
by a good dinner and a glass of very fair
sherry (he had prudently eschewed the
Crown champagne) into something as near
jollity as he ever approached, for the vicar
was a man who could smile, but rarely
laughed, he treated them to a burlesque
account of Miss Turtle's passion.

"How immensely comic!" said Veronica,
slowly. She had reached such a point of
princess-ship that she could barely take
the trouble to part her red lips in a smile
at the expense of these lower creatures.
Nevertheless there was in her heart a
movement of very vulgar and plebeian
jealousy. Jealousy! Jealousy of Mr.
Plew? Jealousy of power; jealousy of
admiration; jealousy of the hold she had
over this man; jealousy, yes, jealousy of
the possibility of the village surgeon
comparing her to her disadvantage with any
other woman, and giving to that other
something that, with all his blind idolatry
of old days, she felt he had never given
to her—sincere and manly respect. She
would not have him feel for any woman
what an honest man feels for his honest
wife.

"I suppose," she said, after a pause,
"that poor little Plew will marry her."

"Oh, I suppose so," returned the vicar,
carelessly. "It would do very well. Maud
thinks he will not; but that's nonsense. Plew
is not very enterprising or ardent, but if
the lady will but persevere he'll yield: not
a doubt of it!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Veronica, toying with
her bracelet and looking as though she
were ineffably weary of the whole subject.
In that moment she was foreseeing a
gleam of wished-for excitement in Shipley.

After dinner—which had been expressly
ordered a couple of hours earlier than usual
—they all drove along the winding turf-
bordered road towards Shipley-in-the-Wold.
It was a clear spring evening. The distant
prospect melted away into faint blues and
greys. A shower had hung bright drops
on the budding hawthorn hedges. The
air blew sweet and fresh across the rolling
wold. Not one of the three persons who
occupied Prince Cesare de' Barletti's handsome
carriage was specially pervious to the
influences of such a scene and hour. But
they all, from whatsoever motive, kept
silence for a time. Barletti enjoyed the smooth
easy motion of the well-hung vehicle. But
he thought the landscape around him very
dull. And besides he was the victim of
an unfulfilled ambition to mount up on the
high box, and drive. He was speculating
on the chances of Veronica's permitting
him to do so as they drove back from the
vicarage. But then even if she consented,
what was to become of Dickinson, his man,
who was seated beside the coachman? He
could not be put into the carriage with his
mistress, that was clear. To be sure the
distance was not very great. He might—
he might perhaps, walk back! But even as
this bold idea passed through Cesare's mind,
he dismissed it, as knowing it to appertain
to the category of day-dreams. Dickinson
was a very oppressive personage to his
master. His gravity, severity, and machine-
like imperturbability kept poor Cesare in
subjection. Not that Cesare had not a
sufficient strain of the grand seigneur in
him to have asserted his own will and
pleasure, with perfect disregard to the
opinion of any servant of his own nation,
but he relied on Dickinson to assist him in
his endeavour to acquire the tone of English
manners.

His first rebuff from Dickinson had been
in the matter of a pair of drab gaiters which
the prince had bought on his own responsibility.
These he had put on to sally forth
in at St. Leonard's, whither he had gone
with his bride immediately on his marriage;
and in conjunction with a tartan neck-cloth
fastened by a gold fox's head with garnet
eyes, they had given him, he flattered
himself, the air of a distinguished member of
the Jockey Club at the very least. Dickinson's
disapproval of the gaiters was, however,
so pronounced, that Cesare reluctantly
abandoned them. And from that hour his
valet's iron rule over his wardrobe was
established.

On these and such-like weighty matters
was Prince Barletti pondering as he rolled
along in his carriage. Veronica leaned back
in an elaborately easy attitude, and while
apparently steeped in elegant languor, was
keeping a sharp look-out in case her secret