ventured upon some tentative allusion to the Wharton family, to which Miss Dallison made frank and unembarrassed response.

"Oh, they are very nice and kind. A little too Frenchified for my taste. In Madame de Pontbrisé it doesn't jar. She was brought up here, she has married a Frenchman and she has assimilated the whole part quite successfully; but the son, I sometimes think, is a little ridiculous. Why can't he be satisfied with being an American? That, after all, is the next best thing to being an Englishman."

"Thank you," said Gretton, laughing.

She laughed also. "Well, I told you last night how devoted I am to my own nation. I ask for nothing better than to spend the rest of my days in England; but nothing, alas! is less likely to happen to me."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

She was prevented from replying by a shrill summons from her mother, who wanted the teapot replenished, and before she could return to the corner of the room where the young man was seated, two unexpected visitors were announced. Lord Lannowe, a little out of breath after his long climb, and perhaps a trifle taken aback at finding himself in an assemblage for which he had not been prepared, bowed and shook hands with his accustomed amiability, but was evidently embarrassed by the obsequious effusiveness of Mrs. Dallison's greeting. As for Monica, she flung herself headlong into Ethel's arms; and if the two girls, thus locked in a tender embrace, did not make a charming picture, there were, at all events, two men present who thought they did.

"Handsomest woman I've seen in the last fifty years, by Jove!-not excepting my own daughters," said the elder of these to himself. "Looks like a lady, too; and

she isn't to blame, hang it all! if her father and mother look like what I suppose they are. Oh, I shall ask her to come and stay at Lannowe. Ned Gervase be bothered! -it's nonsense to call her 'an undesirable acquaintance.' The parents can't expect to be asked, and they wouldn't be if they did. I think I see Georgie's face on being introduced to them!"

It may be conjectured that Miss Dallison would have been very much pleased had she been aware of the above silent soliloquy. She was, at any rate, very much pleased to see her little friend Monica Ferrand, with whom she sat apart, hand in hand, until Mr. Gretton took the liberty of joining them. He took the further liberty of reminding Miss Ferrand that they had met before, and, although she was fain to confess that her personal recollection of him was dim, she knew quite well who he was. Lord Lannowe, on the other hand, recognised Cuthbert from the opposite side of the room and came bustling up with all the more cordiality because he was so glad to escape from Mrs. Dallison and her friends.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "what a pleasure to come across you after all these years! Knew you at once, though you've added I don't know how many inches to your stature since we met last. Well, I'm on my way back to the old county now, and I hope I'm not too old yet for an occasional day with the hounds. Your uncle Robert as keen as ever, I suppose? Terribly sudden thing the death of your other uncle seems to have been. Poor Tom! he used to be the picture of health and strength; but he had a weak heart, I understand."

"Mr.

"Yes, I believe so," answered Cuthbert. Scarth wasn't my uncle, though; I am only related to Uncle Robert through his having married my aunt."

"Of course!-of course! I was forgetting. Yes, if

you had been poor old Tom's nephew, he would have made you his heir, I presume, instead of leaving everything to a Catholic-the very last thing that I should have expected such a black Protestant as he used to be to do! Do you know anything about this young fellow -Nigel, I think his name is-who comes into the property?"

"Yes, I knew a good deal about him when we were at Oxford together," Cuthbert replied; "we were great friends in those days. Afterwards I gradually lost sight of him. I was reading law hard in London while he was going the pace in a style which, I believe, pretty nearly ruined him, and then all of a sudden, as I dare say you are aware, he astonished everybody by disappearing into a monastery. It is very doubtful, I should think, whether he will care to accept Rixmouth, which can only be his for life, anyhow."

"Oh, he has accepted," said Lord Lannowe. "I had a letter this morning from Monsignor Nolan, who tells me that he is expected to take possession any day. I am afraid the poor young man won't find his position an easy one, and it would hardly be in human nature for your uncle Robert to give him a very warm welcome. Well, we must do what we can to be neighbourly."

Lord Lannowe's genial temperament always inclined him to do what he could for his neighbours, and, like the Good Samaritan, he placed a liberal interpretation upon that term. He now entered into familiar conversation with Miss Dallison, who met his advances in a manner entirely satisfactory to him, and if he thought that he was doing something for her by inviting her to visit Yorkshire, it is probable that she thought so too.

"When will you come?" he asked. "The sooner the better, you know. That is, unless you prefer to wait

till August, when Monica will have got through her presentation and her first season and all the rest of it, and when, I dare say, we shall have a few people with us for the grouse shooting. Our young friend here," he added, tapping Cuthbert on the shoulder, "is an uncommonly nice shot, if he hasn't lost his skill. You will be at Knaresby for the twelfth, eh, Gretton? Now, Monica, my child, I don't want to hurry you, but I promised to be at the Embassy by six o'clock."

Monica, who had made no such promise, did not think that her absence was likely to be noticed or resented by his Britannic Majesty's representative. She pleaded to be allowed to stay a little longer with Ethel; and her father, after hesitating for a moment, made the requested concession.

"The carriage shall wait for you, then," he said; "I'll pick up a fiacre for myself. You and Monica had better arrange matters together about the date of your visit to us, Miss Dallison; only please remember that you are pledged to come."

His daughter, he thought, could hardly take any harm from remaining awhile in the company of her school friend; but he was not personally anxious to linger in that of Major and Mrs. Dallison, whose aspect and manners certainly appeared to bear out the rather unflattering report that he had received of them from Colonel Gervase.

on.

As soon as he had departed, the two girls became absorbed in one of those confidential colloquies which are apt to be somewhat irritating to masculine lookersSuch ostensibly engrossing intercourse has the air of lacking sincerity, and possibly it does; but, at least, no man is compelled to sit still and watch it after an averted head has given him a hint to be off. Cuthbert, looking just a trifle cross, rose to take his leave, and

was not pressed to stay. At the last moment, however, Miss Dallison said

"You are not leaving Paris immediately, are you?" "Not for another day or two," he answered.

"Oh!-I was wondering whether Mr. Wharton had asked you to ride in the Bois with us tomorrow morning."

The young man shook his head. "No; and if he did, I haven't got a horse."

"It is not absolutely impossible to hire one," Miss Dallison remarked, smiling; "still, I dare say that sort of riding wouldn't amuse you much. The Wharton girls would certainly amuse you, for they amuse everybody."

"If I were to join your party, it wouldn't be for the sake of the Wharton girls, however entertaining they may be," Cuthbert declared.

"Thank you very much; but I am afraid I shall be monopolised by Mr. Wharton, who is kindly teaching me to ride."

She accompanied this information with a faint sigh which, whether intentionally or not, had rather the effect of an appeal. To this Cuthbert, needless to say, could not turn a deaf ear. Immediately on returning to his hotel, he despatched an explanatory note to his American friend and made inquiries respecting livery stables. Being himself an experienced horseman, he knew how disastrous it is to beginners to be taught in the wrong way, and he felt bound, in common humanity, to rescue poor Miss Dallison, if possible, from an incapable instructor. What on earth did Sol Wharton know about the equestrian art?

Sol Wharton, to tell the truth, did not know much, although he had had lessons from various foreign ridingmasters and had acquired an elegant, if not very