of liking and respect for these ladies.  He was
fond of dining, or coming of an evening to have a
rubber, and still fonder of a glass of good
English sherry, which that lady used to have.  The
daughters, three in number, were nice, pleasant,
and good.

"How are you to-day, ma'am?"  he said,
wiping his forehead.  "Just come in on my
rounds, you see."

"Tell us all the news, Mr. Blacker," said the
youngest.

"See here," said Mr. Blacker, confidentially,
but not answering, and coming close to the
widow lady, "I want you to do something.  I
have just been with the Guernsey Beauforts,
the nicest, most charming people I ever met.
They came by the boat.  He was a colonel in
the army, a tall, haan'some jain-tle-man'y man."
Mr. Blacker, in fits of deep admiration, used to
dwell on his words thus:  "She is a real lady,
and sweet daughters.  One is Victoria, called
after our future queen."

"But now, Mr. Blacker," says Mrs. Dalrymple,
gravely, "how do you know about them?"

"Oh, there are signs, marks, and tokens. As
to manner and an air, there's no mistaking.
They're at Pouillac's, ma'am.  I took them
there myself.  Seventy-five francs a week the
rascal asked them, though I winked at him.
Ma'am, he saw what they were as well as I did.
'But,' says Mr. Beaufort, laying down the first
fortnight in advance,  'they told me, Mr.
Blacker,' says he,  'that this Dieppe was such
an extravagant place.'"

"I suppose,"  said the widow, "you would
like us to call on them?"

"Now see," he added, with fresh confidence,
"I am just going round to a few at first.  Do
the thing quietly and gently.  It wouldn't do
at all to open the flood-gates, and let in the
whole canaille on them.  Oh, I assure you they
are aile-egant people; quiet to a degree; and
speak, you know, in the old, quiet, assured way;
not like the creatures that brag, and swagger,
and have nothing, you know.  I am going back
at two o'clock," said Mr. Blacker, rising, "for
lunch, and then to take him and her round to
the shops to order things.  If you only heard
the nice modest way they asked me; for Pouillac's
would never do, they say.  They want
furniture of their own.  And I—er—told of
you, and—er—she said you were the sort
of people they would so like to know.  And
see here, I'll tell you what you'll do, young
ladies."

"What! , Mr. Blacker?  Tell us, do."

"Get mamma to give us a rubber some night
—a quiet, nice thing; will talk over the
people; and, ma'am, /'// manage the Beauforts.
They said they won't go out for a long time, but,
I dare say—in fact, I'll go security that you
can have them."

"But," said Mrs. Dalrymple, at last called
up into something like excitement, "we could
only have a little cards, and, perhaps, a song
and lemonade—— "

Mr. Blacker smiled, and waved her off.

"Now, now, see that.  The ve-ry thing which
they like.  All in good time.  I tell you what,
I'll just drop in myself to-night for a snug
game, and report progress."  And Mr. Blacker
went his way, leaving the sober but cheerful
ladies in not a little excitement.

He goes off on other missionary duty.  This
busy gentleman firmly believed that these were
duties of a sacred calling; and, in carrying
them out, he was overworked, underpaid, "badly
treated."  He might be pardoned for this curious
delusion; for, to say the truth, beyond the
Sunday's more showy routine, the Dieppe
congregation were not notorious for piety.

As we go his way, and with him look up to
this window and that, we might wish for some
convenient Asmodeus who would open the front
on a hinge, baby-house fashion, and have a
glimpse of the queer people, the queer crooked
sticks, that have been flung across the Straits,
and the queerer shifts going on there.

Here, in this narrow house, like a thin wiry
man, lives DOCTOR MACAN—one of the English
doctors, but from Ireland—with a wife who
brings from Erin the almost too genial fertility
of that land; for the doctor was struggling, as
he himself once remarked pathetically, against
no less than eight children.  The last child
came about two years ago; but, as he added,
"there was no knowing the moment when
Mrs. Macan might take it into her head to
begin again."  That was a sufficient grievance;
but a worse one was WHITE, the new English
doctor, who had lately come to settle—a single
man, of easy address and pleasant manners.
"Really a most amusing creature," some ladies
said.  He could be gallant, too, and there
were some of the younger girls not displeased
to be rallied on the single doctor's attentions.
In a dearth of beaux, many inferior articles
rise in value, just as political economists tell
us the price of second-class land governs
the amount of rent.  In that little hotbed
of scandal and malignant whispering, the new
doctor did not asperse his rival.  He would
merely say Doctor Macan was very good and very
sound in his way; but, naturally, newer things
had come out since Doctor Macan had been at
home, and he could not be expected to be up
to the present state of science.  I am sorry to
say that Doctor Macan did not reciprocate
this handsome tone on the part of his rival—
enemy, rather, as he considered; his language
was not as regulated as it should have been.
"An infernal stuck-up scheming puppy, with
as much knowledge of physic as was in his—
Doctor Macan's—little finger.  A mere
charlatan, sir, with his soft-sawder manner.  Wait.
We'll hear of something one of these fine
mornings."  But the only thing we did hear was
that Doctor White was every day doing better
and better.  "Eating into my practice, ' said
Doctor Macan; and, alas! eating into the
clothes and meat of Fanny, and Jacky, and
Paddy, and a little girl called "Dulia."
Worst of all, it did seem as though Mrs.
Macan were really making up her mind