have a look or thought for anyone but you."

"I never dreamed of anything so impossibly charming, I assure you, Mrs. Scarlett."

"Milly!" interposes Mrs. Craven at this juncture, casting a look at the clock; "we shall never have time to dress before dinner if you and Colonel Brooke don't make a speedy end to your discussion. And we want to see the beginning of the piece."

The Colonel takes the hint and rises; young Thornton prepares to accompany him.

"I won't injure my reputation for good dinners by asking either of you to stay and dine," smiles Mrs. Scarlett. My cook is out for the day. And now-a-days you men think of nothing in the world but that one great event.”

"What a calumny! You always say we

live for nothing else, but I assure you that's another fallacy. The society of charming

"Won't make up for an indifferent dinner. Oh, you forget how often you've treated me to tirades upon the pet subject. 'People aren't fit to live, you know, who can't appreciate a good dinner'-(mimicking him) and anyone who gives you a bad one ought to be hanged, or drowned, or something."

"Good-bye," says Colonel Brooke laughing. "I'm bound to get the worst of it this afternoon."

66

'Good-bye-good-bye, Georgy. You've been very rude to us this afternoon, but we forgive you."

She gives him her hand, and looks ever so kindly into his eyes. His anger against the sex melts as snow in sunshine, and he whispers eagerly,

"I may come and see you sometimes still, mayn't I?”

"Of course you may."

Since that day Georgy has both believed and deceived the sex; he hasn't turned misanthrope yet, and is generally to be found in close attendance upon a pretty

woman.

263

CHAPTER XIV.

BY THE FIRELIGHT.

IDNIGHT booms from Big Ben.

M"

Mrs. Scarlett and Laura Craven are sitting over a roasting fire in the former's bedroom, brushing their hair after dismissing their maids. Not an original situation in a novel, granted, still less so out of one, for if there is a time dear to the female heart for these little épanchements, restrained at other times, it is the witching hour of night. Brush in hand, tresses unbound, luxuriously reclined in well-stuffed arm-chairs, a greater degree of affection

and confidence breathes itself into the spirit of the fair friends; and even women who are only acquaintances cannot resist the temptation of a gossip over the bed-room fire, particularly if it's very late, and they know they ought to have been in bed hours ago. Women never quarrel at these midnight séances; they make common cause, and probably arraign the absent pretty sharply, but for each other the claws are sheathed in the soft velvet paws, and perfect harmony presides at the meeting. I never heard of women falling out upon these occasions.

The two friends are perfectly d'accord as they sit making faint pretence of brushing their long loose hair-a sight worth looking at in these days, when a wealth of tresses is somewhat rare, though not so rare as men affect to think. The four little feet ranged on the fender are thrust