SIR TOM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 3

SIR TOM.

BY MRS. OLIPHANT. Author of "The Chronicles of CarUmrforf," "The Greatest Heiress in England/ "He that Will Not when He May," &c., &c.

CHAPTER XLTTI. THE LITTLE HOUSE IN StATFAIB. The little house in Mayfair was very bright and gay. What conventional words are those! It was nothing of the kind. It was dim and poetical. No light that could be kept out of it was permitted to come in. The quality of light in London even in April is not of the finest quality, and perhaps the Contessa's long curtains and all the delicate draperies which she loved to hang about her were more desirable to see than that very poor thing in the way of daylight which exists in Mayfair. Bice, who was a child of light, objected a little to thiß shutting out, and she would have objected strongly, being young enough to love the sunshine for itself, but for the exquisite reason which the Contessa gave for the interdict which she had put upon it. " Car a," she said, "if you were all white and red like those English girls (it is taut soit pen vulgar between ourselves, and not half so effective as the blanc mat) then you might have as much light as you pleased; but to put yourself in competition with them on their own ground—no, Bice, mia. But in this light there is nothing to

desire." . "Don't you think, then, Madame, said Bice, piqued, " that no light would be better still, and not to be Been the best of all—"

" Darling !" said the Contess3, with that smile which embodied so many things. It i answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof, ana many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she did not think tit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and asked no more. lamps were all shaded, like the windows, in this botver of beauty.' There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some softlyfalling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed through that half-lighted world. Thus, though neither bright nor gay, it realised the effect which in our day s meant by these words. It was a place for pleasure, for intimate society and conversation, aud laughter and wit; for music and soft words; aud above all for the setting off of beauty, and the expression of admiration. The chairs were soft, the carpets like moss ; there were flowers everywhere betraying themselves by their odour even when you could not see them. The Contessa had spared no expense in making the little place —which she laughed at softly, calling it her doll's house—aa perfect as it could be made. And here the two ladies began to live a life very different from that of the Randolph's simple dwelling. Bice, it need scarcely be said, had fulfilled all the hopes of her patroness, else had she never been produced with such bewildering mystery yet distinction to dazzle the eyes of young Montjoie at the Hall. She had realised all the Contessa's expectations, and even justified the bills which Madame di Forno-Populo looked upon with a certain complacency as thty came in as something creditable to her, as proofs of her magnificence of mind and devotion to the best interests of her protegee. And now they had entered upon their campaign. It had annoyed her in this new beginning, amid all her excitements and hopes, to be called upon by Sir Tom for explanations which she had glossed over as best she could, and had indeed no intention of giving at all. But that had passed over, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom and entirely done away with his careless good humour, which had been so pleasant, still he had not as yet showed any intention of interfering, and they had begun their life very cheerfully and with every promise of great enjoyment. The Contessa " received" every day and all day long, from the time when she was visible, which was not, however, at a very early hour.

Bice now rode at the hour when everybody rides, with the Conteaßa, who was a graceful horsewoman, and never looked to greater advantage. The two beautiful Italians, as | they were called, had in this w&yj i week of their arrival, caused a sensation in ' the Row; and it very often happened that two favoured persons, not always the same, who had accompanied them home from the. Park, would be admitted to share a dainty little luncheon; but their day at home did not begin till about five o'clock. _ Few ladies visi'ced the little house in Mayfair, but then they were not much wanted there. The Contessa was not one of those vulgar practitioners who profess in words their preferenoe for men's society. But she said so sweetly that it was barbarous to laugh (thoogh many of her friends did so), that having one close companion of her own sex, her dearest Bice, who was everything to her, she was independent of the feminine element. "And then they are so busy, these ladies of fashion ; tbey have no leisure; they have so many things to do. It is a thraldom, a heavy thraldom, though the chains are gilded. ' Shall we Bee you at Lady Blank Blank's tonight? You must be going to the Duchess' ? Of course, we shall meet at the Highton Grandmodes." "Ah!" cried the Contessa,

spreading out her white hands, " it's fatiguing even only to hear of it. We love our ease, Bice and I; we go nowhere where we are expected to go." The gentlemen to whom this speech was made laughed " consumedly." They even made little aigns to each other behind backs, with ill-manners, such as are current in the beat society. When she looked round at them they said the Conteaea was a perfect mimic, better than anything on the stage, and that she had perfectly caught the tone of that old Lady Barbe Montfichet, who went everywhere (whom, indeed, the Contessa did not know), and laughed again. Bat it was not at the Contessa'e power of mimicry that they laughed. It was at the delicious falsehood of her pretensions, and the thought that if she pleased she might appear at the Highton Grandmodes, or meet the best society at Lady BlanK Blank's. These gentlemen knew better, and it was a joke of which they never tired. They were nob, perhaps, the most desirable class of people in society who had the entr6z in the Contessa's little house: they were old acquaintances who had known her in her progress through the world, mingled with a few young men whom they brought with them, partly because the boys had admired these two lovely women; partly because, with a certain easy benevolence that cost them nothing, and bon camaraderie, they wanted the Contessa's little girl, whoever she was, to have her chance. But few, ii any, of these astute gentlemen, young 01 old, wafc in any doubt as to the position sht held.

They were not altogether without female visitors. Lady Anastasia, that authority of the press, who made the public acquainted with the movements of the Btrangers and was not afraid of compromising herself, sometimes made one at the Httle parties, and enjoyed them much ; and the Dowager Lady Randolph's card was left at the Contessa's door, as was that of the Duchess, who had looked upon her with auch consternation at Lucy's party in the country, but was oivil even then. What these ladies meaut it would be curious to know. Perhaps it was a lingering touch of kindness, perhaps a wish to save their credit in case it should happen by some bewildering turn of fortune that La Forno-Populo might came uppermost again. Would she dare to have herself put forward

at the Drawing-room was what these ladies asked each other with bated breath. It was possible, indeed, that she might succeed in doing so, for there were plenty of goodnatured people who would not mind if she asked them, and of course so close a scrutiny was not kept upon foreigners as upon native subjects, while, as a matter of fact, most people allowed with Lady Randolph thatsofar as could be proved there was nothing against her which would justify absolute exclusion. Would she have tho courage to dare that ordeal, or would she set up a standard of revolt, and declare herself superior to that hall-mark of fashion ? She was clever enough, all the people who knew her allowed, for either role; either to persuade some good woman, innocent I and ignorant enough, to be responsible for her, and elude the researches of the Lord Chamberlain, or else to retreat bravely in gay rebellion and declare that she was not rich enough, or her diamonds not good enough, for that noonday display. For either part theContessa had sufficient clevernes to carry her through. Meanwhile Bice had all the enjoyment without any of the drawbacks of this new life. It was far more luxurious, splendid, and even amusing than the old existence of the watering-places. To . ride in the park and feel herself one of that brilliant crowd, to bo surrounded by a succession of lively companions, to have always "something

* CClip proprietors of tho New Zealand Hebald have purchased the sole right of Publishing " Sir Tom" In tbia Colony.

going on,' 1 that delight, of youth, and a con tinual incense of admiration rising around her enough to have turned a leas steady head, filled Bice's cup with happiness. Bnt perhaps the most penetrating pleasure of all was ; that of having carried, out the Contessa's ex- j pectations and fulfilled .her hopes. Had not | Madame di Forno-Populo been satisfied with the beauty of her charge, ■ none of these expenses would have been incurred, and this life of many delights would never have besn; so that the soothing and exhilarating consciousness of having iaded deserved and earned her present well-being was in Bice's mind. The future, too, opened before her a horizon of boundless bope. To have everything she now had and more, alons; with that one element of happiness which had always been wanting, the certainty that it would last, was the happy prospect within her grasp. Her head was so steady, and her praetital sense of the advantage so great, that the excitement and pleasure did not intoxicate her; but everything was delightful, novel, breathing confidence and hope. The guests at the table where she now sat, equal in importance to the Contessa herself, all flattered and did their best to please her. I They amused her, either because they were clever or because thoy were ridiculous. Bice, with youthful cynicism, did not much mind which it was. When they went to the opera, a similar crowd would flutter in and out of the box, and appear afterwards to share the gay little supper and declare that no prima-donna on the stage could equal the two lovely perfectly blended voice 3 of the Contessa and her ward. To sit late talking, laughing, singing, surrounded, by all this worship, and to wake up again to a dozen plans and the same routine pleasure next day—what heart of seventeen (and she was not quite seventeen) could resist- it ? One thing, however, Bice missed amid all this. It was the long gallery at the hall, the nursery in Park .Lane, little Tom crowing upon her shoulder, digging his hands into her hair, and Lucy looking on—many thingß, yet one. She miesed this, and laughed at herself, and said she was a fool —but missed it all the same. Lucy had come as in duty bound, and paid her call; but had been very grave—not like herself; and Sir Tom was very grave ; looking at her she could not tell how; no longer with his old easy good humour, with a look of criticism and anxiety—an uneasy look as if he had something to say to her and could not. Bice felt instinctively that if he ever said that something it would be disagreeable, and avoided his presence. But it troubled her to lobo this side of her landscape, so to speak. The new was entrancing, but the old was a loss. She missed it, and thought herself a fool for missing it, and laughed but felt it the more. The only member of the household with whom she remained on the same easy terms as before was Jock, who came to the house in Mayfair at hours when nobody else was admitted, though he was quite unaware of the privilege he possessed. He came in the morning, when Bice, too young to want the renewal which the Conteasa sought in bed, and in the mysteries of the toilette, sometimes fretted a little indoors at the impossibility of getting the air into her lungs, and feeling the warmth of the morning light. She was so glad to see him that Jock was deeply flittered, and sweet , thoughts of the most boundless foolishness got into his heart. Bice ran to her room, and found one of her old hats which she had worn in the country, and tied a veil over her face, and came flying downstairs like a bird.

"We may go oufc'and run in the park, so long as no one sees na," she cried. "Oh, ?ome ; nobody cid see me through this veil." " And what good will the air do you throngh that veil 1" said Jock, contemptuously. "You can't see the sun through it; it makes the whole world black. I would not go out if I were yon with that thing over my face, the only chance I had for a wals. I'd rather stay at home; but perhaps you like it. Girls are such "

" What 1 You are going to swear, and if you swear I will simply turn my back. Well, perhaps you didn't mean it. But 1 mean it. Boya are such . What ? little prudes, like the old duennas in the books; that is what you are. You think things are wicked that are not wicked. But it iy to an Englishman the right thing to grumble," Bica said, with a smile of reconciliation as they stepped into the street. On that sweet morning even the street was delightful. _It restored them to perfect satisfaction with each other as they made their way to the park, which stretched its long lines of waving green almost within sight. , " And I suppose," said Jock after a pause, " that you like beiog here 1" Bice gave him a look half friendly half disdainful. "I like living," she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be half alive; we are always living here. But yau never come to see ua ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk as those others do—"

" Montjoio for instance," said Jock, with a strange sense of jealousy and pain. "Very well, Montjoie. He is what you call fun; he bas always something to saj, betises perhaps, but what does that matter ? He makes me laugh." " Makes you laugh 1 at his wit perhaps ?" cried Jock. "Oh what things girls are! Laugh at what a duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has not two ideas, says." " You have a great many ideas," said Bice ; you are olevcr —you know a number of things; but you are not so amusing, and you are not so good-natured. You scold me; and you, say another, a friend, is an ass—" "He was never any friend of mine," said Jock, with a hot flush of anger. " That fellow ! I never had anything to say to him." "No," said Bice, with a smiling disdain which out poor Jock like a knife. "I made a mistake, that was not possible; for he is a man and you are only a boy." Xo describe Jock's feelings under this cut would bo beyond the power of words, ile inferior to Montjoie ; he only a boy while the other was a man ! Rage was nothing in such an emergency. He looked at her with eyes that were almost pathetic in their sense of unappreciated merit and, deeper stiDg still, of folly preferred. In spite of himself, ljocksley Hall and those musings which have become, by no fault of the poet's, the expression of a despair which is half ridiculous came into his mind. He did not see the ridicule. " Having known me to decline—" bis eyes became moist with a dew of pain—"lf you think that," he said slowly,'"Bice—" Bice answered oniy with a laugh. " .Let us make haste ; let us run," she cried. "It is so early no one will see us. Why don't you ride, it is like flying ? And to run is next best." She stopped after a flight, swift as a bird along an unlrequented path which lay all still in the April sunshine, the lilac bushes standing up on each side all athrill and rustling with the spring, with eyes that shone like stars and that unusual colour wbioh made her radiant. Jock, though he could have gone on much faster was behind her for the moment, and came up after her, more occupied by the shame of being outrun and laughed at than by admiration of the girl and her beauty. She was more conscious of her own splendour of bloom than he was, though Bice was not vain, and he was more occupied by the thought of ber than by any other thought. Girls never think of being able to stay," he said, "you do only what can be done with a rush ; but that's not running. If you had ever seen the School Mile—"

"Oh no, 1 want to seo no Miles," cried Bice, "this is what I like, to have all my | finders tingle." Then she suddenly calmed down in a moment and walked along demurely aa the paths widened out to a more frequented thoroughfare. " What I want," she said, " is little Tom upon my Bhoulder and to hear him .scream and hold by my hair. Milady does not look as if I pleased her now. She has come once only and looked—not as she once looked. But she is still kind. She has made this ball for me—for me only. JDid you know? do you danco then if nothing eiae2 Oh, you shall dance since the ball is for me. I love danoiDg to distraction ; but not once have I had a single turn, not once, since we came to England," Bice said, with a sigh, which rose into a laugh in another moment, as .she added, "it will be for me to come out, as you Bay, to bo introduced into society, and after that we shall go everywhere, the Gontessa saya."

CHAPTER XLIY. THE SIEGE OF LONDOi'.

The Contesßa, but perhaps not more than half, believed what she said. Everything was on the cards in this capricious society of England, which is not governed by th'e same absolute laws as in other place. It seemed to ber quite possible that she and her charge might be asked everywhere after their appearance at the ball, which she should take care to tell everybody Lucy was giving for Bice. It was always possible in England that some head of fashion, some great lady whose nod gave distinction, might take; pity, upon Bice's youth and think it hard that she should suffer, even if without any relenting towards the Contessa. And Madame di

Forno-Populo was very strong on the point, which had haen allowed even by old Lad} Randolph, that there was nothing against her which could give any one a right to shut her out. The mere suggestion that the doo's of sojiety might be closed in her face might have driven another woman into ft an tic iudigaalion, but the Contessa had passed that btago. She took the matter quite reasonably, philosophically. There was no reason. She had been poar aDd put to many shite. Sometimes she had been compelled to permit heiselt to be indebted to a man in a way no woman should allow herself to be. She was quite aware of this, and was not, therefore, angry against society; but she said to herself with great energy that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the Drawing-room ! nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the virtues, to present her—if the ball went; off well at Park-lane. She said to herseif that there was nothing on her mind which would meke her shrink from seeking admission to the presence of th« Queen. She was not afraid even ( pf that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty, debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of someone whose notice would throw down all obstacles ; or it might touch the heart of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice. And after that of, course, they would go everywhere, and every prognostication of success and triumph would come true. Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this the Contessa had furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women, were jealous, that she had. been pursued by their hostility wherever she went, t.bat a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the lovely had to brave from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate to' use it if necessary; but these were the grands moyens, not to be resorted to save ia case of necessity. She would herself have been willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her—enjoying everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which her soul longed yet which she "despised heartily, which she would i have undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but there was nothing that could make up for absence from them —they alone had in their power the cachet, the symbol of universal acceptance. All these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been going on there since she separated herself from that household which the Contessa did not understand. Sir Tom, indeed, was comprehensible. The discovery which he thought he had made, the things which she had allowed him to divine, and even permitted him to prove for himself without making a single assertion on her own part were quite sufficient to account for bis changed looks. But Lucy, what had she found out ? It was not likely that Sir Tom had communicated his discovery to her.

Lucy's demeanour confused the Contessa more than words can say. The simple, creature had grown into a strange dignity, which nothing could explain. Instead of the sweet compliance and almost obedience of former days, the deference of the younger to the elder woman, Lucy looked at her with a grave composure, as of an equal or superior. What had. happened to the girl? And it was so important that she should be friendly now and kept in good humour. Madame di Forno-Populo put forth all her attractions, gave her dear Lucy her sweetest looks and words; bat made very little impression.

This gave her a little tremour when she thought of it; for all her plans for the future were connected with the ball on the 26th at Park-lane,

This ball appeared to Lucy too the most important crisis in her life. She had made a sacrifice which was heroic that nothing might go wrong upon that day. Somehow or other she could not tell how, tor the struggle had been desperate within her, she had subdued the emotion in her own heart and schooled herself to, an acceptance of the old routine of her life until that event should be over. All her calculations went to that dato ■ but not biyond. Life seemed to stop short there. Ib had been arranged and settled with a light heart in the pleasure of knowing that the Contessa had taken a house for herself, and that consequently Lucy was hence forward to be more mistress of her own. She had been so ashamed of her own pleasure •in this prospect, so compunctious towards her guest, whose departure made her happy that she had thrown herself with enthusiasm into this expedient for making it up to them. She had said it was to be Bice's ball. When the Dowager's revelation came upon her like I a thunder-bolt, as soon as she was able to think at all she had thought of this with a depth of emotion which was strange to be excited by so frivolous a matter. It was a pledge of the warmest friendship; but those for whom it was to be, had turned out the enemii-s of her peace, the destroyers of her happiness; and it was high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking, Lady Randolph afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa had suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing, a few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a sudden illnes3, any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved. There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern, and through all her i troubles she remembered that Bice at least had a claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody else could have. Under what roof but his should she

make her first appearance in the world? Lncy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness aad tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged even than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest stigma without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her (as she considered advancement) to make her happy (as she reokoned happiness) it was right she should have done. Lucy suppressed her own wretchedness heroically for this cauße. She bore the confusion that had come into her life, without Baying a word for the sake of the other young creature who was her fellow sufferer, flow hard it was to do, she could not have told, nor did any one suspect, except vaguely Sir Tom himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that wa3 at work, without knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some explanation. She avoided him as much as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her. Till the 26th. Nothing Bhe was reßOlved should interfere with that. And then —but not the baby in in the nursery knew IeBS than Lucy what was to happen then.

They had come to London on the 2nd, so that this day of fate was nearly three weekß off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress in her affairs. Three weeks is a lone; time in a house which is open to visitors even from five o'clock in the afternoon every day, and without intermission; and even that was not the whole, for the ladies were accesible elsewhere than in the house ia Mayfair. It had pleased the Contessa not to be visible when Lord Mounjoie called at a somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who knew the world, and not one to have things made too easy for him. He was all aflame accordingly to gain the entree thus withheld, and when the Contessa appeared for the first time in the Park, with her lovely companion, | Montjoie was eagerly on the watch, and lost no time in claiming acquaintance, and joiuing himself to her train. He was one of the two who were received two or three days afterwards. When the ladies went to the opera he was on thorns till he could join them. He was allowed to go home with them for one song, and to come in next afternoon for a little music. And from that time forward there was no more

question of shutting him out. Be came and 1 went almost when he pleased, as a young man may be permitted to do when he has become one of the intimates in an easy going pleasure-loving household, where there is always "something going on." He was so little flattered that never during all these days and nights had he once been allowed to repeat the performance -upon which he had prided himself, and with which he had followed up the singing of the Contessa and Bice at the Hall. The admirable lady whom they had met there, with her two daughters, had been eager that Lord Montjoie should display this accomplishment of his, aad tho • girls had been enchanted by his singing; but ] the Contessa, though not so irreproachable, I would have none of it. And Bice laughed ' freely at the young nobleman who had so

much to bestow, and thay both threw at him dolicate little ahafta o£ wit which never pierced his stolid complacency, though he was quite quick enough wishal to see the fan when other gentlemen looked at each other over the Contessa's shoulder, and burst into little peals of laughter at.her little speeches about.the Hiqhton Grandmodes and other such exclusive houses. Montjoie knew all about La Fomo-Populo. Bat this did not affect his admiration for Bice. No one like her had come within Montjoie's ken. He knew all about the girls in blue or in pink or in white, who asked him to sing. Bat Bice, who laughed at his accomplishment and at himself, and was bo saucy to him, and made fun of bim, he allowed to his face—that was very different. He described her in terms that were not chivalrous, and his own emo» tions in words still less ornate, but before the fortnight was over the best judges declared among themselves that by Jove the FornoPopulo had done it this time, that the little one knew how to play her cards, that it was all up with Montjoie, poor little beggar, with other elegances of a similar kind. The man who had taken the Contessa's house for her, and a great deal of trouble about all her arrangements, whom she described as a very old friend, and whose rueful sense that house agents and livery stablee might eventually look to him if she had no success in her enterprise did not impair his fidelity—went so far as to speak seriously to Montjoie on the subject. "Look here Mont," he said, "don't you think you are g 'ing it rather too stroDg? There is not a thing against the girl, who is as nice as a girl can be, but then the aunt, you know—"

"I'm glad she is the aunt," said Montjoie. *' I thought she was the mother; and 1 always heard you were devoted to her."

"We are very old friends," said this disinterested adviser. "There's nothing I would not do for her. She is the best soul oat, and was the loveliest woman, X can tall you—the girl is nothing to what she was, Aunt or cousin, X' am not sore what is the relationship, but that's not the question. Don't you think you are coming it rather strong

"Oh, I've got my wits about me," said Montjoie, and. then he added, rather reluctantly—for it was the fashion of his kind to be vulgar and to keep what generosity or nobleness there was in them carefully out o£ sight—"and I've no relative, doa't you know ? I've got nobody to please but myself—"

"Well, that is a piece of luck anyhow," the Mentor said, and he told the Contessa the gist of the conversation next morning, who was highly pleased by the news. The curious point in aU this was that Bica had not the least objection to Montjoie. She was a clever girl, and he was a stupid young man, but whether it was that her entirely unawakened heart had no share at all in the matter, or that her clear practical view of the matter influenced her sentiments well as her mind, it is certain that she was quite pleased with her fate, and ready to embrace it without the least sense that it was a sacrifice or anything but the happiest thing possible. He amused her, as she had said to Jock. He made her laugh, most frequently at himself ; bnt what did that matter ? He had a kind of good looks, and that good nature which is the product of prosperity and well-being, and a sense of general superiority to the world. Perhaps the girl saw no man of a superior order to comparo him with; but as a matter of fact Bhe was perfectly satisfied with Monljoie. Mr. Derwentwater and Jock were more ridiculous to her than he was, and were less in harmony with everything she had known. Their work, their intellectual occupations, their cleverness and aspirations were out of her world altogether. The young manabout-town who had nothing to do but amuse himself, who waa always

" knocking about," as he said, whose business was pleasure, was the kind of being with whom she was acquainted. She had no understanding of the other kind. Jock, who had been her comrade in the country, whose society had amused her there, and for whom sbe had a sort of half condescending affection, was droll to her beyond measure, with his ambitions and great ideas as to what he was to do. He, too, made her laugh, but not as Montjoie did. She laughed at him—though, this would have immeasurably . surprised Jook—with much less sympathy than she had with the other upon whom he looked with so much contempt. They were both silly to Bice, silly as in her strange experience she thought usual and natural for men to be; but Montjoie's manner of being silly was more congenial to her than that of the other. He was more in tune with the life she had known. Hamburg, Baden, Wiesbaden, and all the other Bads, even Monaco, would have suited Montjoie well enough. The trade of pleasure has its affinities like every other, snd a tramp on hia way from fair to fair is thus more era rapport with a duke than the world dreams of. Thus Bice found that the young English marquis, with more money than he knew how to spend, was far more like the elegant adventurer living on his wits, than all those intervening classes o£ society to whom life is a more serious, and certainly a much less festive and costly affair. She understood him far better. And instead of being as Lucy thought, a sacrifice, an unfortunate victim sold to a loveless marriage for the money and the advantages it would bring, Bice went on very gaily, her heart as unmoved as possible to what she felt to be a most congenial fate. And they all waited for the 26th and the ball with growing excitement. It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the character of the Contessa'a campaign. It might re-introduce her into society under better auspices than ever, or it might—but there was no need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would consummate Bice's triumph—and

make it possible to present her as a young lady who had already accomplished the greatest feat which society could demand—a debutante who was already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the greatest parti in the kingdom. The idea was like wine, and went to the Contessa's head. She had in this interval of excitement a brief little note from Lucy which startled her beyond measure for the moment. It was to ask the exact names of Bice. " You shall know in a few days why I ask, but it is necessary they should Ae written down in fall and exactly," Lucy said. The Contessa had half forgotten, in the new flood of life about her, what was in Lucy's power, and the further advantage that m : ght come to their relations, and she did not think of this even now, but felt with momentary tremour as if some snare lay concealed under these simple wordß. She took a full hour for consideration before she wrote with a bold and flowing hand :— "Sweet Lacy, the child's name is Beatrice Ersilia di Forno-Populo. You cannot, I am sure, mean her anything but good by such a question. She has not been properly introduced, I know—l am fantastic. I loved to call her Bice and no more, Darling, a te." This was signed with a cipher, which it was not very easy to make out—a little mystery which pleased the Contessa. She thus involved in a pleasant little uncertainty her own name also, which nobody knew. tTo bo continued.]