Weyman Stanley John
Chippinge Borough

"Very good, very good," Miss Sibson answered slowly. She had not been blind to the momentary hesitation. "Then I will send her to you to make her apologies. Only be kind enough to remember that she does not know that you have seen that slip of paper."

He assented, and with a good-natured nod Miss Sibson rose and went heavily from the room. Not for nothing was she held in Bristol a woman of sagacity, whose game of whist it was a pleasure to watch; nor without reason had that attorney of character, of whom we have heard, chosen 'her in custodiam puellæ.

Vaughan waited, and to be frank, his heart beat more quickly than usual. He knew that he was doing a foolish thing, though he had refused to commit himself; and an unworthy thing, though Miss Sibson, perhaps for her own reasons, had winked at it. He knew that he had no right to see the girl if he did not mean her well; and how could he mean her well when he had no intention of marrying her? For, for a man with his career in prospect to marry a girl in her position-to say nothing of the stigma which no doubt lay upon her birth-was a folly of which none but boys and old men were capable.

He listened, ill at ease, already repenting. The voices in the next room, reduced to a faint murmur by the closed doors, ceased. She was being told. She was being sent to him. He coloured. Yes, he was ashamed of himself. He rose and went to the window, and wished that he had said "No"; that he had taken himself off. What was he doing here at his time of life-the most sane and best balanced time of life-in this girls' school? It was unworthy of him.

The door opened, and he forgot his unworthiness, he forgot all. The abnormal attraction, allurement, charm, call it what you will, which had overcome him when she turned her eyes on him on the coach overcame him again-and tenfold. He thought that it must lie in her eyes, gentle as a dove's. And yet he did not know. He had not seen her indoors before, and her hair gathered in a knot at the back of her head was a Greek surprise to him; while her blushes, the quivering of her mouth, her figure slender but full of grace, and high-girdled after the mode of the day-all, all were so perfect, so enticing, that he knew not where the magic lay.

But magic there was. And such magic that though he had prepared himself, and though the last thing in his thoughts was to insult her, he forgot himself. As she paused, her hand still resting on the door, her face downcast and distressed, "Good G-d," he cried, "how beautiful you are!"

And she saw that he meant no insult, that the words burst from him spontaneously. But not the less for that was their effect on her. She turned white, her very heart seeming to stop, she appeared to be about to swoon. While he, forgetting all but her shrinking beauty, devoured her with his eyes.

Until he remembered himself. Then he turned from her to the window. "Forgive me!" he cried. "I did not know what I said. You came on me so suddenly; you looked so beautiful-"

He stopped; he could not go on.

And she was trembling from head to foot; but she made an effort to escape back to the commonplace. "I came," she stammered-it was clear that she hardly knew what she was saying-"Miss Sibson told me to come to say that I-I was sorry, sir, that I-I misjudged you yesterday."

"Yesterday? Yesterday?" he cried, almost angrily. "Bah, it is an age since yesterday!"

She could make no answer to that, though she knew well what he meant. If she answered him it was only by suffering him to gaze at her in an eloquent silence-a silence in which his eyes cried again and again, "How beautiful you are!" While her eyes, downcast, under trembling lashes, her heart beaten down, defenceless, cried only for "Quarter, quarter!"

They were yards apart. The table, and on it Miss Sibson's squat workbox and a pile of longcloth, was between them. Miss Sibson herself could have desired nothing more proper. And yet-

 
Farewell, farewell, my faithless shield,
Thy lord at length is forced to yield.
Vain, vain is every outward care,
The foe's within and triumphs there!
 

It was all over. In her ears would ring for ever his words of worship-the cry of the man to the woman, "How beautiful you are!" She would thrill with pleasure when she thought of them, and burn with shame, and never, never, never be the same again! And for him, with that cry forced from him, love had become present, palpable, real, and the idea of marriage real also; an idea to be withstood, to be combated, to be treated as foolish, Byronic, impossible. But an idea which would not leave him any more than the image of her gentle beauty, indelibly stamped on his brain, would leave him. He might spend some days or some weeks in doubt and wretchedness. But from that moment the odds were against him-he was young, and passion had never had her way with him-as seriously against him as against the army that with spies and traitors in its midst moves against an united foe.

Not a word that was convenant had passed between them, though so much had passed, when a hasty footstep crossed the forecourt, and stopped at the door. The knocker fell sharply twice, and recalled them to realities.

"I-I must go," she faltered, wresting herself from the spell of his eyes. "I have said what I-I hope you understand, and I-it is time I went." How her heart was beating!

"Oh, no, no!"

"Yes, I must go!"

Too late! A loud voice in the passage, a heavy step, announced a visitor. The door flew open, and there entered, pushing the startled maid aside, the Honourable Bob Flixton, at the height of his glory, loud, impudent, and unabashed.

"Run to earth, my lad!" he cried boisterously. "Run to earth! Run-"

He broke off, gaping, as his eyes fell upon poor Mary, who, in making way for him, had partly hidden herself behind the door. He whistled softly, in great amazement, and "Hope I don't intrude," he continued. And he grinned; while Vaughan, looking blackest thunder at him, could find no words that were adequate. To think that this loud-voiced, confident fool, the Don Giovanni of the regiment, had stumbled on his pearl!

"Well, well, well!" the Honourable Bob resumed, casting down his eyes as if he were shocked. And again: "I hope I don't intrude," he continued-it was the parrot cry of that year. "I didn't know. I'll take myself off again" – he whistled low-"as fast as I can."

But Vaughan felt that to let him go thus, to spread the tale with a thousand additions and innuendoes, was worst of all. "Wait, if you please," he said, with a note of sternness in his tone. "I am coming with you, Flixton. Good-morning, Miss Smith."

"See here, won't you introduce me?" cried the irrepressible Bob.

"No!" Vaughan answered curtly, and without staying to reflect. "You will kindly tell Miss Sibson, Miss Smith, that I am obliged, greatly obliged to her. Now come, Flixton! I have done my business, and we are not wanted here."

"I come reluctantly," said Bob, allowing himself to be dragged out, but not until he had cast a last languishing look at the beauty. And on the doorstep, "Sly dog, sly dog!" he said. "To think that in Bristol, where pretty girls are as scarce as mushrooms in March, there should be such an angel! Damme, an angel! And you the discoverer. It beats all!"

"Shut up," Vaughan answered angrily. "You know nothing about it!" And then, still more sourly, "See here, Flixton, I take it ill of you following me here. It was too cool, I say."

But the Honourable Bob was not quick to quarrel. "I saw you go in, dear chap," he cried heartily. "I wanted to tell you that the hour of dinner was changed. See? Did my own errand, and coming back thought I'd-truth was, I fancied you'd some little game on hand."

"Nothing of the kind!"

The Honourable Bob stopped. "Honour bright? Honour bright?" he repeated eagerly. "Mean to say, Vaughan, you're not on the track of that little filly?"

Vaughan scowled. "Not in the way you mean," he said sternly. "You make a mistake. She's a good girl."

Flixton winked. "Heard that before, my lad," he said, "more than once. From my grandmother. I'll take my chance of that."

Vaughan in his heart would have been glad to fall upon him and pommel him. But there were objections to that course. On the other hand, his feelings had cooled in the last few minutes, and he was far from prepared to announce offhand that he was going to marry the beauty. So "No, you will not, Flixton," he said. "Let it go! Do you hear? The fact is," he continued, in some embarrassment, "I'm in a sort of fiduciary relation to the young lady, and-and I am not going to see her played with. That's the fact."

"Fiduciary relation?" the Honourable Bob retorted, in perplexity. "What the deuce is that? Never heard of it! D'you mean, man, that you are-eh? – related to her? Of course, if so-"

"No, I am not related to her."

"Then-"

"But I'm not going to see her made a fool of, that's all!"

An idea struck the Honourable Bob. He stared. "See here," he said in a tone of horror, "you ain't-you ain't thinking of marrying her?"

Vaughan's cheeks burned. "May be, and may be not," he said curtly. "But either way, it is my business!"

"But surely you're not! Man alive!"

"It is my business, I say!"

"Of course, of course, if it is as bad as that," Flixton answered with a grin. "But-hope I don't intrude, Vaughan, but ain't you making a bit of a fool of yourself? What'll old Vermuyden say, eh?"

"That's my business too!" Vaughan answered haughtily.

"Just so, just so; and quite enough for me. All I say is-if you are not in earnest yourself, don't play the dog in the manger!"

XI
DON GIOVANNI FLIXTON

In the political world the last week of April and the first week of May of that year were fraught with surprises. It is probable that they saw more astonished people than are to be found in England in an ordinary twelvemonth. The party which had monopolised power for half a century, and to that end and the advancement of themselves, their influence, their friends, and their dependants, had spent the public money, strained the law, and supported the mob, were incredibly, nay, were bitterly surprised when they saw all these engines turned against them; when they found dependants falling off and friends growing cold; above all, when they found that rabble, which they had so often directed, aiming its yells and brickbats against their windows.

But it is unlikely that any Tory of them all was more surprised by the change in the political aspect than Arthur Vaughan-when he came to think of it-by the position in which he had put himself. Certainly he had taken no step that was not revocable. He had said nothing positive; his honour was not engaged. But he had said a good deal. On the spur of the moment, moved by the strange attraction which the girl had for him, he had spoken after a fashion which only farther speech could justify. And then, not content with that, as if fortune were determined to make sport of his discretion, he had been led by another impulse-call it generosity, call it jealousy, call it what you will-to say more to Bob Flixton than he had said to her.

He had done this who had hitherto held himself a little above the common run of men. Who had chalked out his career and never doubted that he had the strength to follow it. Who had not been content to wait, idle and dissipated, for a dead man's shoes, but in the pride of a mind which he believed to be the master of his passions had set his face towards the high prizes of the senate and the forum. He, who if he could not be Fox, would be Erskine. Who would be anything, in a word, except the empty-headed man of pleasure, or the plain dullard satisfied to sit in a corner with a little.

He, who had planned such a future, now found himself on the brink-ay, on the very point-of committing as foolish an act as the most thoughtless could commit. He was proposing to marry a girl below him in station, still farther below him in birth, whom he had only known three days, whom he had only seen three times! And all because she had beautiful eyes, and looked at him-Heavens, how she had looked at him!

He went hot as he pictured her with her melting eyes, hanging towards him a little as the ivy inclines to the oak. And then he turned cold. And cold, he considered what he was going to do!

Of course he was not going to marry her.

No doubt he had said to her more than he had the right to say. But his honour was not engaged. The girl was not the worse for him; even if that which he had read in her eyes were true, she would get over it as quickly as he would. But marry her, give way to a feeling doubtless evanescent, let himself be swayed by a fancy at which he would laugh a year later-no! No! He was not so weak. He had not only his career to think of, but the family honours which would be his one day. What would old Vermuyden say if he impaled a baton sinister with the family arms, added a Smith to the family alliances, married the nameless, penniless teacher in a girls' school?

No, of course, he was not going to marry her. He had said what he had said to the Honourable Bob merely to shield her from a Don Juan. He had not meant it. He would go for a long fatiguing walk and put the notion and the girl out of his head, and come back cured of his folly, and make a merry night of it with the old set. And to-morrow-no, the morrow was Sunday-on Monday he would return to London and to all the chances which the changing political situation must open to an ambitious man. He regretted that he had not taken the Chancellor's hint and sought for a seat in the House.

But the solitary ramble in the valley of the Avon, which was a hundredfold more beautiful in those days than in these, because less spoiled by the hand of man, a ramble by the Logwood Mills, with their clear-running weedy stream, by King's Weston and Leigh Woods-such a ramble, tuneful with the songs of birds and laden with the scents of spring, may not be the surest cure for that passion, which

 
is not to be reasoned down or lost
In high ambition or a thirst for greatness!
 

At any rate he returned uncured, and for the first part of the Honourable Bob's dinner was wildly merry. After that, and suddenly, he fell into a moody silence which his host was not the last to note.

Fortunately with the removal of the cloth and the first brisk journey of the decanters came news. A waiter brought it. Hart Davies, the Tory candidate for Bristol, and for twenty years its popular member, had withdrawn, seeing his chance hopeless. The retirement was unexpected, and it caused so much surprise that the party could think of nothing else. Nine-tenths of those present were Tories, and Flixton proposed that they should sally forth and vent their feelings by smashing the windows of the Bush, the Radical headquarters; a feat performed many a time before with no worse consequences than a broken head or two. But Colonel Brereton set his foot sharply on the proposal.

"I'll put you under arrest if you do," he said. "I'm senior officer of the district, and I'll not have it, Flixton! Do you think that this is the time, you madmen," he continued, looking round the table and speaking with indignation, "to provoke the rabble, and get the throats of half Bristol cut?"

"Oh, come, Colonel, it is not as bad as that!" Flixton remonstrated.

"You don't know how bad it is," Brereton answered, his brooding eyes kindling. And he developed anew his fixed idea that the forces of disorder, once provoked, were irresistible; that the country was at their mercy, and that only by humouring them, a course suggested also by humanity, could the storm be weathered.

The company consisted, for the most part, of reckless young subalterns flushed with wine. They listened out of respect to his rank, but they winked and grinned behind his back; until, half conscious of ridicule, he grew angry. On ordinary occasions Flixton would have been the worst offender. But he had the grace to remember that the Colonel was his guest, and he sought to turn the subject.

"Come, come!" he cried, hammering the table and pushing the bottle. "Let the Colonel alone. For Heaven's sake shelve the cursed Bill! I'm sick of it! It's the death of all fun and jollity. I'll give you a sentiment: 'The Fair when they are Kind, and the Kind when they are Fair.' Fill up! Fill up, all, and drink it!"

They echoed the toast in various tones, sober or fuddled. And some began to grow excited. A glass was shattered and flung noisily into the fire. A new one was called for, also noisily.

"Now, Bill," Flixton continued to his right-hand neighbour, "it's your turn! Give us something spicy!" And he hammered the table. "Captain Codrington's sentiment."

"Let's have a minute!" pleaded the gentleman assailed.

"Not a minute," boisterously. "See, the table's waiting for you! Captain Codrington's sentiment!"

Men of small genius kept a written list, and committed some lines to memory before dinner. The Captain was one of these. But the call on him was sudden, and he sought, with an agonised mind, for one which would seem in the least degree novel. At last, with a sigh of relief, "Maids and Missuses!" he cried.

"Ay, ay, Maids and Missuses!" the Honourable Bob echoed, raising his glass. "And especially," he whispered, calling his neighbour's attention to Vaughan by a shove, "schoolmissuses! Schoolmissuses, my lad! Here, Vaughan," he continued aloud, "you must drink this, and no heeltaps!"

Vaughan caught his name and awoke from a reverie. "Very good," he said, raising his glass. "What is it?"

"Maids and Missuses!" the Honourable Bob replied, with a wink at his neighbour. And then, incited by the fumes of the wine he had taken, he rose to his feet and raised his glass. "Gentlemen," he said, "gentlemen!"

"Silence," they cried. "Silence! Silence for Bob's speech."

"Gentlemen," he resumed, a spark of malice in his eyes, "I've a piece of news to give you! It's news that-that's been mighty slyly kept by a gentleman here present. Devilish close he's kept it, I'll say that for him! But he's a neat hand that can bamboozle Bob Flixton, and I've run him to earth, run him to earth this morning and got it out of him."

"Hear! Hear! Bob! Go on, Bob; what is it?" from the company.

"You are going to hear, my Trojans! And no flam! Gentlemen, charge your glasses! I've the honour to inform you that our old friend and tiptopper, Arthur Vaughan, otherwise the Counsellor, has got himself regularly put up, knocked down, and sold to as pretty a piece of the feminine as you'll see in a twelvemonth! Prettiest in Bristol, 'pon honour," with feeling, "be the other who she may! Regular case of-" and in irresistibly comic accents, with his head and glass alike tilted, he drolled,

 
There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet Matilda Pottingen;
Thou wast the daughter of my tu
tor, law professor at the U
niversity of Göttingen!
 

'Niversity of Göttingen! Don't laugh, gentlemen! It's so! He's entered on the waybill, book through to matrimony, and" – the Honourable Bob was undoubtedly a little tipsy-"and it only remains for us to give him a good send-off. So charge your glasses, and-"

Brereton laid his hand on his arm. He was sober and he did not like the look on Vaughan's disgusted face. "One moment, Flixton," he said; "is this true, Mr. Vaughan?"

Vaughan's brow was as black as thunder. He had never dreamt that, drunk or sober, Flixton would be guilty of such a breach of confidence. He hesitated. Then, "No!" he said.

"It's not true?" Codrington struck in. "You are not going to be married, old chap?"

"No!"

"But, man," Flixton hiccoughed, "you told me so-or something like it-only this morning."

"You either misunderstood me," Vaughan answered, in a tone so distinct as to be menacing, "for you have said far more than I said. Or, if you prefer it, I've changed my mind. In either case it is my business! And I'll trouble you to leave it alone!"

"Oh, if you put it-that way, old chap?"

"I do put it that way!"

"And any way," Brereton said, interposing hurriedly, "this is no time for marrying! I've told you boys before, and I tell you again-"

And he plunged into a fresh argument on the old point. Two or three joined issue, grinning. And Vaughan, as soon as attention was diverted from him, slipped away.

He was horribly disgusted, and sunk very low in his own eyes. He loathed what he had done. He had not, indeed, been false to the girl, for he had given her no promise. He had not denied her, for her name had not been mentioned. And he had not gone back on his resolution, for he had never formed one seriously. Yet in a degree he had done all these things. He had played a shabby part by himself and by the girl. He had been meanly ashamed of her. And though his conduct had followed the lines which he had marked out for himself, he hoped that he might never again feel so unhappy, and so poor a thing, as he felt as he walked the streets and cursed his discretion.

Discretion! Cowardice was the right name for it. Because the girl, the most beautiful, pure, and gentle creature on whom his eyes had ever rested, was called Mary Smith, and taught in a school, he disavowed her and turned his back on her.

He did not know that he was suffering what a man, whose mind has so far governed his heart, must suffer when the latter rebels. In planning his life he had ignored his heart; now he must pay the penalty. He went to bed at last, but not to sleep. Instead he lived the scene over and over again, now wondering what he ought to have done; now brooding on what Flixton must think of him; now on what she, whose nature, he was sure, was as perfect as her face, would think of him, if she knew. How she would despise him!

The next day was Sunday, and he spent it, in accordance with a previous promise, with Brereton, at his pleasant home at Newchurch, a mile from the city. Though the most recent of his Bristol acquaintances, Brereton was the most congenial; and a dozen times Vaughan was on the point of confiding his trouble to him. He was deterred by the melancholy cast of Brereton's character, which gave promise of no decisive advice. And early in the evening he took leave of his host and strolled towards the Downs, balancing I would against I will not; now facing the bleak of a prudent decision, now thrilling with foolish rapture, as he pondered another event. Lord Eldon had married young and with as little prudence; it had not impeded his rise, nor Erskine's. Doubtless Sir Robert Vermuyden would say that he had disgraced himself; but he cared little for that. What he had to combat was the more personal pride of the man who, holding himself a little wiser than his fellows, cannot bear to do a thing that in the eyes of the foolish may set him below them!

Of course he came to no decision; though he wandered on Brandon Hill until the Float at his feet ceased to mirror the lights, and Bristol lay dark below him. And Monday found him still hesitating. Thrice he started to take his place on the coach. And thrice he turned back, hating himself for his weakness. If he could not overcome a foolish fancy, how could he hope to scale the heights of the Western Circuit, or hurl Coleridge and Follett from their pride of place? Or, still harder task, how would he dare to confront in the House the cold eye of Croker or of Goulburn? No, he could not hope to do either. He had been wrong in his estimate of himself. He was a poor creature, unable to hold his own amongst his fellows, impotent to guide his own life!

He was still contesting the matter when, a little before noon, he espied Flixton in the act of threading his way through the busy crowd of Broad Street. The Honourable Bob was wearing hessians, and a high-collared green riding-coat, with an orange vest and a soft many-folded cravat. In fine, he was so smart that suspicion entered Vaughan's head; and on its heels-jealousy.

In a twinkling he was on Flixton's track. Broad Street, the heart of Bristol, was thronged, for Hart Davies's withdrawal was in the air and an election crowd was abroad. Newsboys with their sheets, tipsy ward-leaders, and gossiping merchants jostled one another. The beau's green coat, however, shone conspicuous,

 
Glorious was his course,
And long the track of light he left behind him!
 

and before Vaughan had asked himself if he were justified in following, pursued and pursuer were over Bristol Bridge, and making, by way of the Welsh Back-a maze of coal-hoys and dangling cranes-for Queen's Square.

Vaughan doubted no longer, weighed the propriety of his course no longer. For a cool-headed man of the world, who asked nothing better than to master a silly fancy, he was foolishly perturbed. He made on with a grim face; but a dray loading at a Newport coal-hulk drew across his path, and Flixton was pacing under the pleasant elms and amid the groups that loitered up and down the sunlit Square, before Vaughan came within hail, and called him by name.

Flixton turned then, saw who it was, and grinned-nothing abashed. "Well," he said, tipping his hat a little to one side, "well, old chap! Are you let out of school too?"

Vaughan had already discovered Mary Smith and her little troop under the trees in the farthest corner. But he tried to smile-and did so, a little awry. "This is not fair play, Flixton," he said.

"That is just what I think it is," the Honourable Bob answered cheerfully. "Eh, old chap? Neat trick of yours the other day, but not neat enough! Thought to bamboozle me and win a clear field! Neat! But no go, I found you out and now it is my turn. That's what I call fair play."

"Look here, Flixton," Vaughan replied-he was fast losing his composure-"I'm not going to have it. That's plain."

The Honourable Bob stared. "Oh!" he answered. "Let's understand one another. Are you going to marry the girl after all?"

"I've told you-"

"Oh, you've told me, yes, and you've told me, no. The question is, which is it?"

Vaughan controlled himself. He could see Mary out of the corner of his eye, and knew that she had not yet taken the alarm. But the least violence might attract her attention. "Whichever it be," he said firmly, "is no business of yours."

"If you claim the girl-"

"I do not claim her, Flixton. I have told you that. But-"

"But you mean to play the dog in the manger?"

"I mean to see," Vaughan replied sternly, "that you don't do her any harm."

Flixton hesitated. Secretly he held Vaughan in respect; and he would have postponed his visit to Queen's Square had he foreseen that that gentleman would detect him. But to retreat now was another matter. The duel was still in vogue; barely two years before the Prime Minister had gone out with a brother peer in Battersea Fields; barely twenty years before one Cabinet Minister had shot another on Wimbledon Common. He could not, therefore, afford to show the white feather, and though he hesitated, it was not for long. "You mean to see to that, do you?" he retorted.

"I do."

"Then come and see," he returned flippantly. "I'm going to have a chat with the young lady now. That's not murder, I suppose?" And he turned on his heel and strolled across the turf towards the group of which Mary was the centre.

Vaughan followed with black looks; and when Mary Smith, informed of their approach by one of the children, turned a startled face towards them, he was at Flixton's shoulder, and pressing before him.

But the Honourable Bob had the largest share of presence of mind, and he was the first to speak. "Miss Smith," he said, raising his hat with aplomb, "I-you remember me, I am sure?"

Vaughan pushed before him; and before the girl could speak-for jealousy is a fine spoiler of manners, "This gentleman," he said, "wishes to see-"

"To see-" said Flixton, with a lower bow.

"Miss Sibson!" Vaughan exclaimed.

The children stared; gazing up into the men's faces with the undisguised curiosity of childhood. Fortunately the Mary Smith who had to confront these two was no longer the Mary Smith whom Vaughan's appearance had stricken with panic three days before. For one thing, she knew Miss Sibson better, and feared her less. For another, her fairy godmother-the gleam of whose gifts never failed to leave a hope of change, a prospect of something other than the plodding, endless round-had shown a fresh sign. And last, not least, a more potent fairy, a fairy whose wand had power to turn Miss Sibson's house into a Palace Beautiful, and Queen's Square, with its cawing rooks and ordered elms, into an enchanted forest, had visited her.

True, Vaughan had left her abruptly-to cool her burning cheeks and still her heart as she best might! But he had said what she would never forget, and though he had left her doubting, he had left her loving. And so the Mary who found herself addressed by two gallants was much less abashed than she who on Friday had had to do with one.

Still she was astonished by their address; and she showed this, modestly and quietly. "If you wish to see Miss Sibson," she said-instinctively she looked at Vaughan's companion-"I will send for her." And she was in the act of turning, with comparative ease, to despatch one of the children on the errand, when the Honourable Bob interposed.

"But we don't want Miss Sibson-now," he said. "A man may change his mind as well as a woman! Eh, old chap?" turning to his friend with simulated good-humour. "I'm sure you will say so, Miss Smith."

She wondered what their odd manner to one another meant. And, to add to her dignity, she laid her hand on the shoulder of one of her charges and drew her closer.

"Moreover, I'm sure," Flixton continued-for Vaughan after his first hasty intervention, stood sulkily silent-"I'm sure Mr. Vaughan will agree with me-"

"I?"

"Oh, yes he will, Miss Smith, because he is the most changeable of men himself! A weathercock, upon my honour!" And he pointed to the tower of St. Mary, which from the high ground of Redcliffe Parade on the farther side of the water, looks down on the Square. "Never of the same mind two days together!"

Vaughan snubbed him savagely. "Be good enough to leave me out!" he said.