irreverent name that M 'Variety called the Ruler of
the Planets—" is a very good sort of a card;
but he's a desperate slow coach; his house
ain't much bigger than a mouse-trap, and there
isn't an inch of style about him."

"Who is this Monsieur Kafooze?" the
countess asked, turning quickly on her
interlocutor. " Quelle est cette vieille ganache qui
me conte toujours des balivernes sur les étoiles?
Whence comes he, this idiotic old schoolmaster,
with his moons, and his stars, and his other
impertinences?"

"Poor old Foozlum. There's no harm about
him. How sharp you do take one up, to be sure!
I suppose he's a right to let lodgings, and be a
little cracked, as long as he don't bite anybody,
if he likes. I was quite staggered this morning
to find out what he was in the daytime."

"And what is he at night? A clown, a
manbaboon, a lamplighter, a fiddler, a joueur de
cornemuse?"

"That's tellings. Ask me no questions, and
—you know the rest. Billy Van Post's got him
down in the pay list, and he draws his sal pretty
regular. That's all we've any of us any right to
know. It ain't much, but he's worth his salt to
me, and more. However, it isn't about old
Foozlum that we're talking. His shabby little
rattletrap of a place ain't good enough for you
and missy to live in, let alone receiving your
friends. You want some place more stylish—
something slap up."

"I don't want to live in town," the countess
returned. " I cannot afford to keep a carriage
—there were days when I kept two—and in
eight days I should be ruined in cabs."

"Don't want you to be ruined in anything.
Don't want you to live at the West-end.
You'd be getting into some devilry there.
Why don't you come to the Cottage, you and
missy?"

"The Cottage, where is that?"

"Don't you know that queer old crib behind
the ball-room. Two hundred years old, they
say it is. I think it is a thousand. There's a
good many rats, and a ghost or two, but it's
very picturesque, and in tol lol repair. Besides,
it, won't cost you a penny for rent or taxes,
and old Mrs. Snuffburn—that's the Ranelagh
housekeeper, you know—who's been there ever
since the time of Gog and Magog, will see that
you're all right and comfortable."

The countess was nothing loth.

"But," she said, as though making terms,
"I shall be able to see all my friends there,
Monsieur Mac?"

"The whole boiling of 'em. Tom, Dick, and
Harry. Lords and ladies—whoever you please."

"Au bout du compte, elle me va, votre offre.
I accept it," she answered simply.

"That's all right. You'll be as jolly as a
sandboy there, and if you want a nice little
supper as often as ever you like, the kitchen's
close by, and I don't give a French man-cook
six pounds a week for nothing. What an
extravagant rascal he is, to be sure. That fellow would
fry his grandmother in the best Epping butter
at one-and-sevenpence a pound, if Billy Van Post
did not keep a sharp look-out after him."

The bargain, then, was concluded. It suited
the Wild Woman in every way. She wanted
an oasis in the midst of a desert, a solitude
where none but her intimates could hear her,
and where she could be as savage and uproarious
as she pleased. She was cabined and cribbed
in the Little South Lambeth street, with the
school-children down stairs, and the Chinese on
one side, and the nurse on the other, " Va
pour la chaumière," she cried, joyously. The
Cottage was something wild, something Bohemian,
something uncivilised, like herself.

The removal was soon effected. They had
no penates. Lily's wardrobe could have been
conveyed in a peck measure. The girl was
sorry, nevertheless, to leave the little old
schoolmaster and his humpbacked niece.
Rhodope, indeed, cried very bitterly on the day of
the lodger's departure, and, as she wound her
arms round Lily, frequently complained that
she had now nothing worth living for. It
touched Lily to find that there was, after all,
some one to like her, although that somebody
was crook-backed and troubled with bunions.

Mr. Kafooze was sorry too—very sorry. He
said more than once that he did not like the
turn affairs were taking, and that some one
meant mischief to some one else. The stars
told him so. But the celestial bodies,
vouchsafing him no further information, he was forced
to assume a bland expression of countenance,
and to mutter that it was no business of his, and
that he had no right to interfere. He kept very
carefully out of the way of the countess, of whom
he was honestly afraid, sending for the rent by
Rhodope, and requesting his late lodger—in a
three-corned note, beautifully executed in round
hand—to do him the extreme favour of returning
the latch-key. But he stole a quiet opportunity
to bid Lily good-by on the kitchen stairs.

"It isn't a Kathleen Mavourneen farewell,
after all," he whispered. "It won't be for
years, and it won't be for ever. The stars tell
me so. I shall see you often, my dear, much
oftener than you'll see me. You needn't take
any notice of me, unless there's something very
particular. I'm nobody, but I'm always about.
God bless you, and beware of the gentlefolks."

GRANDFATHER  BLACKTOOTH.

THERE are in Switzerland loftier mountains
and more extensive ice-fields than in the Upper
Engadine, but nowhere else does Nature show
herself in a wilder or more savage guise. There
are no fields of rye or millet, no patches of green
pasture. Save for a grey nightcap of clouds,
and a scanty kilt of green-black pines, the gaunt
barren hills stand naked from top to toe. Even
on the lower levels there is little pasture for
sheep or cattle, and goats have enough to do to
gather a bare subsistence among the craggy
precipices. For nine months of the year snow
covers the ground. Such was the region in