Lily with cruel words, because she had dared to
love the sultan, her grand-nephew, gave way to
her natural kindness and softness of heart. She
wept and bewailed the fugitive. She would
have sacrificed much to recover her. She
acknowledged that Lily's love had been
blameless. But she was gone, and would return no
more.

The abbé, as in duty bound, informed
Mademoiselle Marcassin of Lily's flight, and of the
unavailing steps that had been taken to discover
her hiding-place.

The Marcassin did not take the intelligence
much to heart.

"I expected it," she remarked, coldly. "I,
who am the greatest sufferer by the
absconding of this vaurienne, would not spend three
francs ten sous in an advertisement in the
Petites Affiches to get her back. There are
cats and cockatoos whom one is glad to lose,
Monsieur l'Abbé. You and your Madame de
Kergolay were entichés de cette petite friponne.
Now she has robbed you as she robbed me, and
has doubtless fled to join the swindler, her
mother, with whom for years she has probably
been in secret correspondence. Ah, ces Anglaises,
ces Anglaises! c'est de la perfidie à, en croire à
la fin du monde. You had much better, instead
of petting and spoiling her, have put her into a
Maison de Discipline, where she would have
been fed on bread and water, and whipped twice
a week. The SÅ“urs Grises have an excellent
institution at Auteuil. You say that she did
not take her clothes with her. Has your noble
duenna counted her spoons since the flight of
her darling?"

"I don't think the poor little child is
dishonest," the abbé urged, in mild deprecation. He
was a good man, after all, and much troubled in
his mind about Lily.

"Bah!" sneered the inflexible Marcassin.
"You take the whole world to be inhabited by
candidates for the Prize of Virtue. Une fameuse
Rosière elle ferait celle-là! The trumpery little
thing was innately and incorrigibly bad.
Mauvaise herbe, I tell you, Monsieur l'Abbé
mauvaise herbe."

And Madame de Kergolay died. To her two
faithful servants she left a small but adequate
provision, much to the distaste of Edgar; but
of the rest he was sole legatee. Vieux Sablons
and Prudence faded away almost as quietly as
their mistress from the stage. The old man
did not survive madame many months. He
expressed, before he died, his wish to be buried in
Père la Chaise, in the same grave with his
beloved mistress, but crosswise, at her feet, as
became an ancient and faithful but humble
servitor. The abbé did his best to have his wish
fulfilled; but there were difficulties in the way:
the administration was not propitious, and
Vieux Sablons had to be buried as many millions
of his forerunners had been buried before him.
It did not so much matter, perhaps. He was
bound, let us hope, to a country where there is
but One Master, in whose eyes superiors and
servitors are alike.

Edgar Greyfaunt, after passing a decent
period in retirement at Aix-les-Bains—his great-
aunt had died towards the close of the summer
—where his exceedingly fashionable mourning,
his jet studs and wrist-buttons, and the coal-black
steed he rode, were deservedly admired, came
back to Paris, settled accounts with Madame
de Kergolay's notary—whom he accused, at
many stages of their business transactions, of
robbing him, and who did him the honour to
remark, as he handed him the last packet of
thousand-franc notes accruing from the dead
lady's succession, that with a more heartless
young man he had never come in contact—and
called in an upholsterer from the Rue St. Louis,
to whom, after a parley of ten minutes, he sold
en bloc the entire furniture and fittings of his
relative's apartments in the Marais: tapestry,
china, pictures and all. "I do not want this
rococo stuff," he said, candidly. "I was in
England not many months since, and am
returning there; and if I require brics-à-bracs I can get
as many as I need in Wardour-street at cheaper
rates than here."

The upholsterer handed three thousand francs
to the Sultan Greyfaunt, and sent a couple of
vans to carry away all the poor old lady's
penates, which were worth six thousand at
least. Big men in blouses dragged the faded
Cupids, and shepherdesses, and bewigged
gentlemen with the cross of St. Louis, down stairs.
Gentil Bernard lay for a time in the gutter, and
Babet la Bouquetière was calmly contemplated
by a chiffonnier. A part of the furniture went
very soon to decorate the rooms of a lorette, in
the Rue Taitbout. When she had quarrelled
with the English milord, through her over-
weening partiality for the Brazilian coffee-planter, who
turned out to be a swindler from Hamburg, she
had a lavage, or sale of her knick-knacks, and some
of Madame de Kergolay's penates were sold to
the Jews, and some were bought by painters to
increase the "properties" of their studios withal.
Then in process of time they got burnt, or
broken up, or pawned and sold and pawned
again, or exported to America or Australia.
Which is the way of the world, and not at all
uncommon.

But the first van-load of goods had scarcely
left the house of the deceased before Edgar
Greyfaunt was snugly ensconced in the coupé
of the diligence on his way to Calais. He began
to think his mourning very hot and shabby
looking. He must have an entirely new wardrobe
when he reached London. Those French tailors
did not know how to fit an English gentleman.
Willis or Nugee should be honoured with his
patronage. He was about to assume his proper
position in society. He was destined to shine
there, that was certain. He had an ancient
name, a handsome presence, and a fortune. Yes,
quite a fortune. In a letter of credit on a
London banking firm he was entitled to draw
for no less a sum than five thousand pounds
sterling. That was his entire capital—a
hundred and twenty-five thousand francs. It sounded
magnificent. Reduced to English sterling, it