little woman by the name of Leopoldine. By
Jove, what a little devil she was! She used to
live in the Rue de Seine. Well, Madame de
Kergolay grew quite fond of our little party.
She turned out badly, however."

"Turned out badly, Mr. Greyfaunt? What
do you mean? " Sir William's voice quivered as
he spoke. He was very nearly saying, " What
the devil do you mean i"

"At all events she gave my aunt a great deal
of trouble. She used to say that she was
shockingly hypocritical and deceitful. One day
she gave the little party a tremendous wigging,
whereupon, her monkey being up, Miss Lily
bolted."

"Do you mean to say that the poor friendless
young creature ran away?"

"That's it, Sir William. Unfortunate Miss
Bailey, and all the rest of it, though she didn't
hang herself in her garters. I'm afraid that the
real state of the case was, that she had become
smitten with your humble servant. I'm sure I
couldn't help it. It was no fault of mine that
she took a fancy to me. My aunt, who was a
very soft-hearted old lady, was very much cut
up when she found that the bird had flown.
Would have given a good deal, I dare say, to get
her back. But it was no use; they couldn't find
the least trace of her; and now she turns up in
the company of that horrible old horse-riding
woman. Faugh! how she smells of brandy.
How, in the name of all that's wonderful, she
and Lily came together, passes my comprehension."

"It is indeed wonderful; but am I to understand,
Mr. Greyfaunt, that it is your intention
to continue to pay your attentions to this young
lady?"

"How deuced solemn and formal you are, to
be sure. But you're rather out in your reckoning.
In the first place, it's rather stretching
a point to call the little party a young lady.
Persons of gentle blood are usually chary as to
how they apply that appellation. You and I are
men of old family, and don't sow the names of
'lady' and 'gentleman' broadcast."

"Indeed! What would you call this unfortunate
child—this young woman—then ? I have
every reason to believe that she is the daughter
of this Madame Ernestine, and she, I know
positively, is the widow of an English gentleman
of very gentle blood indeed."

"You astonish me. I shouldn't have thought
she had ever gone higher in the marriage line
than a groom or a harlequin. However, we will
call the little party whatever you please. I
ordinarily speak of this description of persons as
ces gens—people. As for paying attentions to
her, you are again slightly in error. I never
paid her any. It was all on the other side of
the hedge. Je me suis laissé aimer. The little
party took a fancy to me, and for that you will,
I hope, agree I am not to blame. I don't think
I ever had ten minutes' continuous conversation
with her. There is time, nevertheless, to
improve the acquaintance. Ah! here we are in
Whitehall. I have a call to make at the Foreign
Office. Thank you for the lift. Au revoir until
dinner-time."

"And it is for this senseless, brainless puppy
that Lily has made herself miserable," Sir
William Long muttered, as he drove furiously
away. " Confound the coxcomb, I should have
liked to twist his neck."

CHAPTER L.     THE COTTAGE.

THE proposition made by Mr. M'Variety to
the countess that evening, at dinner (a repast,
by the way, at which Lily was not present), was
essentially satisfactory to that lady. It was of a
duplex nature. First it had reference to the
augmentation of Madame Ernestine's weekly
stipend; and, sundry pounds and shillings being
added thereto, the countess vouchsafed to
express her opinion that Mr. M'Variety was "un
bon enfant," and exceptionally free from the
vice of stinginess, inherent, if she were to be
believed, to the managerial tribe.

"You needn't give me credit for too much
generosity," the candid manager observed, in.
return for the countess's somewhat profuse
expressions of gratitude, " even when I tell you
that your sal can go on, if you like, all the
winter. The concern doesn't pay, nor anything
like it; and I must shut up very soon, or, by
Jove, I shall be shut up myself; but that will
have nothing to do with your engagement. I
mean to come out with a bang next spring, so
you can be practising something stunning in
the high school way between this and next
Easter. Open or shut, you'll find the ghost
walk every Saturday at three P.M., military
time; and if ever you want a fiver on account,
you'll find Billy Van Post always ready to
honour your I O U. Sounds very liberal, don't
it? You needn't imagine, for all that, that I'm
one of the Brothers Cheeryble. The fact is,
countess, that what suits your book suits my
book, and that's all about it."

As he spoke, Mr. M'Variety slapped, perchance
involuntarily, his waistcoat-pocket. Of course
Madame Ernestine, not being a clairvoyant,
could not see, through the well-shrunken tweed
and glazed calico lining of that garment, a
neatly-folded slip of paper of a dull grey hue,
which, had it been opened, would have proved
to be a cheque, the amount of which has nothing
to do with this recital, drawn in favour of
J. M'Variety, Esq., or bearer, by a person signing
himself William Long. But, morally,
Madame Ernestine had cut all her eye-teeth, and
could see through a millstone or a plaid waistcoat
as well as her neighbours; and she understood
the enterprising manager perfectly well
when he hinted that it was not through any
spontaneous intuition of munificence, but for
divers reasons well known to himself, that he
proposed to prolong her engagement on terms so
exceedingly favourable.

"And, while we're talking business," continued
the manager, "I don't see why you should go
on wasting your sweetness on the desert, air in
that poky little hole where I found you this
morning.  Old Foozlum"—it was by this