meant nothing special, after all. Pauline smiled.
Romaine looked at Mrs. Fermor fixedly for a
moment.

"Out of the mouths of babes, you know," said
Pauline; "rather it is not likely you should
know. Take care."

He said nothing, but got up and began to
pace. "I hear, after all," he said, "they will not
go to Rome. That fellow has listened to reason
at last."

"To the doctors?" said Pauline.

"To reason, I said!" he replied, stopping
suddenly before them, laughing grimly. "Poor
Virginia's chest is made of gauze; a Roman winter
for her—God help her, when it all begins so
wisely as that, how will it go on?"

"O, very well," said Pauline, calmly; "he
will make a very good serviceable creature; kind
and thoughtful, better than a hundred of your
showy theatrical men, who wish marriage to be
all husband."

Young Mrs. Fermor sighed deeply, and even
loudly. Pauline's eyes floated round significantly
to Mr. Romaine's eyes. That sigh saved ten
minutes' explanation afterwards. Then Mrs.
Fermor rose to go. She bowed with a timidity
not unacceptable to him, who returned it with a
gracious ungraciousness. Pauline went out with
her.

"You must excuse him," she said; "he is in
an odd state at present, and we have all to
humour him. A girl he liked has just married,
and he is suffering, poor soul. Shall we see
each other soon? I want you to love me. I do
indeed. I live in the solitude of the world. I
have no one to care for me since my poor darling
was taken from me. You know it was hard, since
she was not to go with him, that she could not
have stayed with us. Won't you love me?"

Mrs. Fermor saw her eyes glistening. She was
conqueror, and could be generous. Pressing her
hand, she said, "Indeed I will."

Coming back to her drawing-room, Pauline
found the steady pacing going on.

"You seem to have a good deal to say at the
door there," he said. "Is the lobby to become
the drawing-room?"

Pauline laughed. "How intolerant!" she said;
"intolerant even of a simple girl like that."

"Simple, indeed," he said, still pacing. "Who
is she, pray?"

"I should tell you nothing," said Pauline;
"you had a field for yourself, and one of these
Frenchmen you despise so, would have shone.
However, you confounded her, I think—I
suppose she had not seen so wild a being in her
life."

"Folly," he said, roughly. "Simple enough,
though. Who is she?"

"A married girl. This is her third moon."

"I remember the husband now—a stick, and
a conceited stick. A stick I should like to break
across my knee."

"She is a half school-girl," said Pauline, "full
of wonder and admiration for anything
wonderful or admirable. One of the true
worshipping souls—the rarest kind of this sort of
virtù."

He stopped pacing. "I have given up
collecting," he said.

"The marriage, I suspect," continued Pauline,
opening and shutting a fan, "will not be the
happiest. He is fine and vain. He is de par
amours, as the old French romancers say; his
head is turned with conquest. There was a
poor girl—No matter."

There was scorn in Mr. Romaine's face. He
was intolerant. "I knew he was a stick," he
said. "I took his measure for a prig at the first
glance."

"There," said Pauline, laughing, "make her
one of your vestals. She is actually made to
worship. Don't you see devotion in her eye,
poor soft child? There are many weary moments
in the day, you know, hard to fill up."

Thus Miss Manuel and Mr. Romaine talked
until the lamp was brought in. Then the
Bishop of Leighton Buzzard came in, bringing
with him those finely-turned ebony legs; and,
after the bishop, the pleasant reviewer; and,
after him, the general company. A crowd of
faces—many false, many indifferent; but, by-
and-by, appeared among them one true one—that
of Young Brett.

An officer-child or an officer-boy in that
company would have been wholly irrelevant. He
would have fallen upon evil days, and have been
stoned— that is to say, politely jeered out of the
place. But Pauline honoured and even loved
that faithful young soldier.

"No one must touch my terrier," she said.

For him there was a happy smile. She was
glad when she saw his figure. His ready service
—his faithful devotion in old cruel days, now
happily far off, were not to be forgotten. Indeed,
his true and simple devotion had been made
manifest in a hundred kind and useful ways; and, so
long as he had stayed at Eastport, he had watched
tenderly over that quiet marble slab which rested
over poor Violet. When the regiment moved,
which it did in about a year, Pauline, returning
home, discovered that he had privately salaried
an assistant in a nursery-garden to look after
weeds, and do such little gardening as would be
wanting.

But, in that mixed company, his own merits
soon exempted him from any protection. This
day he came and was welcomed by Pauline, who
had not seen him for a fortnight. He sat down
beside her. "Do you remember your wondering,"
he said, "what had become of that man
at Eastport—that Major Carter?"

Pauline's eyes flashed.

"Yes—yes," she said hastily; "what have
you heard?"

"I saw him to-day," said Young Brett. "I
never liked him. But I went up and spoke to
him. I found out all about him."

"Yes?" said Pauline, with great interest;
"go on. You are the most useful friend I have."