with perilous preparations of salmon and stewed
eels. He bade the man bring him some Seltzer-
water, and gave Lily a modest glass of the
beverage mingled with champagne. He gave
her some whitebait, which, with the thin brown
bread-and-butter, she thought delicious, but he
made her eschew the condimental cayenne
pepper and lemon. He watched over her with
a careful tenderness, very curious to behold,
and, though he drank fearfully long draughts of
the rare wines, he took little more solid food
than Lily herself.

"You must be very thirsty!" the child said,
simply, as he drained another bumper of claret-
cup.

"I am always thirsty."

"How funny! Why don't you drink tea, or
go to the pump?— unless, of course, you are hot.
Miss Babby will never let us go to the pump
when we are hot. Miss Furblow begged a jug
of water from the cook once, when we had
come in from a long walk, and broke out,
two hours afterwards, in a— O so dreadful rash.
Mrs. Bunnycastle said it was a judgment upon
her."

"I dare say it was. My being always thirsty
is a judgment, I suppose, on me. I drink because
I am alone, and because I am ill."

" Ill! You look very well, only you are so
tall. Have you got a cold?"

"Much worse than that. I am in a consumption."

"What is that? I never heard of that."

"Fancy, for aught I know," the tall gentleman
replied.

"What do you do all day? Have you any
holidays?"

"A great deal too many, my darling. It is
always holiday-time with me, and a dreadfully
dreary time it is."

"Then you don't learn any lessons?"

"I have learnt some that have cost me very
dear."

"Are you good?"

"Not the least bit in the world, dear; I am
very bad."

"How dreadful. Everybody ought to be
good. Miss Babby says so."

"And who is Miss Babby?"

"One of my governesses. The one who is so
kind to me. You ought to be good, you know,
because then the angels will love you. We
had a missionary-box at our school. Have you
got a missionary-box?"

"I'm afraid I haven't got such a thing."

"But you go to church?"

"I am ashamed to say I don't. Do you?"

"Yes; but only this last half. I am growing
a great girl, you know," and Lily drew herself
up proudly. "And then all the big girls
begged for me, and promised Miss Babby that
I should be very good and quiet."

"And you like going to church?"

"Oh! it's so nice. They sing so beautifully.
But I don't like the Litany, it is so long, and
always the same thing."

"And the sermon?"

Lily blushed. " Miss Babby scolded me for
going to sleep all through the sermon. Miss
Heavylids was kept in for sleeping, too. Miss
Browncett was punished for reading a story-
book in church-time. Were you ever punished?"

"I punish myself at present. The rest is all
to come. But at last this long-winded dinner
is over. Here is dessert. Will you let me
peel you an apple? A nice red, juicy apple,
Lily?'"

"If you please," said the child. " I like to be
called Lily."

She watched with much amused curiosity the
process of peeling a ribstone pippin. Sir
William accomplished the task very deftly,
and having removed the peel in one long
spiral, threw it over his shoulder upon the
carpet.

"There," he cried, " the letter the peel will
form, will be the initial of your sweetheart's
name. Let's look at it. Why, it's a W!"

"And W stands for William," exclaimed
Lily, in an ecstasy. " How nice. And will you
be my sweetheart?"

"Of course, if we ever see one another again.
Countess," he continued, " we have been trying
the Sortes Virgilianæ, and Fate declares that I
am to be your little girl's sweetheart."

"' Sortes! Virgile!' Qu'est-ce que c'est que
ça?" replied the lady addressed. "I don't know
what you are talking about. Est-ce que vous
radotez, mon garçon?"

"We hadn't a copy of Virgil, so we tried an
apple. The peel came down in a W."

"Absurdity!" cried the lady. "What nonsense
to put into the child's head."

To the most magnificent feast there must be
a termination, and at last the Greenwich dinner
came to an end. It had been a very merry
dinner indeed, and the two quietest guests were
Lily and Sir William Long. It had been a very
merry dinner, and when the cloth was removed,
and more wines— red wines— were brought on,
it became quite an uproarious dinner. After a
time, one of the gentlemen rose and proposed the
health of their charming guest, the countess, in
a speech which was very eloquent, and very full
of compliments, and which was received with
thunders of applause; but in which there was
faint suspicion (I am inclined to think) of the
speaker making fun of the countess. The
audience, however, laughed and cheered
tremendously, and in the midst of the oration,
and the thumpings on the table, and the
clattering of the plates, and the clinking of the
glasses, Sir William Long stole away quietly
with Lily into the balcony.

He bade her look out on the river, so calm
and glassy, and the great ships with their dusky
hulls lying so tranquil, and the cottages with
curling smoke, and the cows and horses in the
meadows opposite. They looked for a time
quite silently at the glories of the setting sun.
The child was glad to be away from the hot
room, and the fumes of the wine, the riotous
noise, and the strange wild company. She