"Don't hesitate to order all you want. I suppose you really haven't any frocks or hats or things, have you? And then for the evening-how about doing a theatre ?"

He was so simple and so young, notwithstanding his white hair, that Monica was encouraged to confide timidly to him what she would really enjoy. Her secret wish, it appeared, was to go to the circus. A friend and former school-companion of hers, now out in the world, had described to her the wonders to be beheld there in terms which had fired her imagination, and, if she might be allowed to choose, she would very much prefer it to the theatre.

"Her father laughed. "Between you and me, my dear, so should I. We can't escape the Français tonight, though, I'm afraid, for I've taken a box there, and Ned Gervase promised to look in upon us in the course of the evening. Do you remember him, I wonder? No; I suppose you wouldn't. Good fellow, Gervase-rather solemn, perhaps, but a good fellow all the same. Well, as I say, I decided upon the Français because it was the only theatre that seemed—er— possible. But never mind, we'll go to the circus tomorrow. What is the name of your friend who recommended it? Sensible sort of girl, I should think. Anyhow, her tastes and mine seem to agree."

Monica was delighted to hear him say that, for she had been wondering how she should find an opportunity of mentioning to him how eager she was to make him acquainted with Ethel Dallison, the beautiful, accomplished and attractive being whom all the inmates of the convent, save its head, had regarded with admiring envy, and by whom it had been her personal privilege to be singled out for intimacy. She said breathlessly

"I am sure you would love Ethel! She is so pretty and so clever and-and so irresistible !"

"I am afraid," answered Lord Lannowe, "that I am a little bit too old to love people for such reasons, though I don't deny that they are good reasons. You want me, I suppose, to call upon her people. Well, since she is a friend of yours, I shall be charmed to do so, provided, of course, that her people are decent."

Oh, but naturally they are!" cried Monica, much impressed by the quick intuition which had enabled her father to forestall a coming request. "Major and Mrs. Dallison are not rich, Ethel says, but they are quite bien vus, and they go out a great deal." She added, with a sigh, "Unfortunately, they are Protestants; perhaps that is why Reverend Mother never took to Ethel as much as the rest of us did."

"I am above prejudices of that kind," Lord Lannowe gravely declared. "I prefer a pretty Protestant to a— No, no! what am I saying? It is bad to be a Protestant, but it is an extenuating circumstance to be pretty. Oh, we'll call upon them."

Father," said Monica, suddenly summoning up courage to ask a question to which, if she had been a little older, she must have known that only one answer could possibly be returned, "do you mind my not being pretty?"

Now, Lord Lannowe had realised that the girl's physical charms fell considerably short of the high Ferrand standard, and he regretted this for her sake, if not for his own; but her pathetic appeal almost brought the tears into his eyes.

"My dear child," he exclaimed, "you are as pretty as youth and health and a strong family likeness to your sisters can make you! What ill-natured, ill-conditioned woman has been telling you that you are not?"

"Oh, nobody," answered Monica, laughing rather tremulously; "I can see for myself. I only wanted to

say that you must not be troubled if it is difficult to marry me, because I should always be very happy as a religious."

"What! shut yourself up in a convent and leave me to end my days all alone at Lannowe? I like that!" "You would like that?" echoed Monica, interrogatively.

"No; when I say I like that, I mean that I should not like it at all. You will have to learn English, Monica. Do you know that you talk like a foreigner, and look rather like one too? I don't speak of your shockingly foreign ideas. Let me tell you my own ideas, which I flatter myself are English, even if they aren't shared by Frances and Georgina and Lettice— as, between ourselves, I dare say they aren't. I don't see that it is any woman's duty to marry, least of all when she has an aged, widowed father upon her hands. I want to keep you with me as long as I can, and if I can keep you until the end of my days, why, so much the better for me! I shall be ready, nevertheless, to give you up to any good fellow who may love you and whom you may love; only if you ever ask me to give you up to a religious community, I shall consider that a poor return to me for buying you a lot of new clothes, calling upon people of whom I have never heard in my life, and taking you to the circus. Do you understand?"

They soon understood one another very well indeed -as well, perhaps, as it is possible for an old man and a young girl to understand one another. They were, in any case, mutually pleased, which was the main point. Lord Lannowe had installed himself magnificently at the Hôtel Bristol, for although he was a poor man, he had seldom lived like one, nor were the associations of the Indian governorship which he had just relinquished such as to suggest economy. Moreover, he was at least

temporarily well-to-do, seeing that he had saved something out of his official salary, that he had let his place in Yorkshire during his absence at a handsome rental and that his wife was dead. The late Lady Lannowe, a brilliant, energetic woman, had pushed him on in the world, had obtained appointments for him and had married her daughters splendidly, but, to set against that, she had been expensive. He was probably rather better off without her than with her; better off, it may be, in every sense, inasmuch as her ladyship had had a high, imperious temper and a sharp tongue.

Well, she had certainly not transmitted either of the above attributes to her youngest child, and Lord Lannowe, thankfully recognising this, as he sat in the dim box at the theatre that evening-a little sleepy after an excellent dinner-said to himself that there are, after all, more desirable things than beauty, even in

a woman.

Monica, for her part, may have been thinking that there are more amusing things than a tragedy by Racine. Having been carefully educated, she could appreciate up to a certain point the sonorous elegance of that classic master; still, one does not, at the age of seventeen, go to a theatre for the first time in order to be forcibly reminded of the schoolroom, and the entrance of Colonel Gervase during the first entr'acte was a welcome diversion to her. She remembered very well having once before seen that tall, grave, fine-looking man, who was now serving as Military Attaché to the British Embassy in Paris, and she also knew more about his antecedents than her father supposed; for, indeed, children generally do hear and recollect more than their elders suppose. Monica was aware that in years gone by Colonel Gervase had been rather badly treated by her sister Frances. Whether there had been

an actual engagement or not she was not sure; but it was notorious that Gervase had been thrown over in favour of the Duke of Leith, a man some years older than Lord Lannowe, and he had remained a bachelor ever since. That he had likewise remained the Duchess's most intimate friend was, in Monica's opinion, a circumstance highly creditable to him. Persons better acquainted with the world and with human nature were of a different opinion; but it so happened that those persons were, for once, mistaken, and that the guileless Monica was in the right. For the Duchess of Leith, though still beautiful and pleasant-mannered, like all the Ferrands, was a stupid, selfish, heartless woman; and if her former adorer had not acknowledged to himself that he was sick of the sight of her, that was only by reason of an obstinate, chivalrous fidelity to the past, which was a part of his nature. He greeted Monica as an old man greets a child, calling her at once by her Christian name, metaphorically patting her on the head and asking her whether she was not glad to be released from her cage.

"I was very happy at the convent, but I am very glad to be with my father," she demurely replied.

At this Lord Lannowe laughed. "You see how well the children are brought up by these good Sisters. I suppose if Monica had just been turned out from a first-class boarding-school in England, she would have answered, 'I should jolly well think I was!' All the same, I do believe she is as satisfied with her old father as he is with her, and we have made great friends already, and we shall know better than to take your advice about theatres another time, Ned. Tomorrow night we're going to the cirque. Will you come?"

Unfortunately, Colonel Gervase was engaged for the next night; but he owned that he personally preferred