"He is come here with Mr. Felton to meet
his cousin, I suppose. Arthur Felton will not
like that, I fancy. He regarded this fine family
reunion as a very decided nuisance, I can
assure you."

"I don't quite understand you," her
companion said. "Mr. Felton's son is not here,
that I know of; he certainly had not arrived
yesterday, for Dallas was at my lodgings, and
would have been sure to mention it."

"No," replied the lady, with a slow, provoking
smile, which lighted her eyes up with mischief,
and showed more of her faultless teeth
than always glistened on the world. "I know
he is not here, but he is coming. I gave him
a rendezvous here for this very week, in, Paris,
last March."

The gentleman looked at her in such extreme
surprise, that it quite amused her. She did not
only smile now, she laughed.

"I will explain my meaning," she said, "in
very few words. I have known the Feltons all
my life, and Arthur has been more or less in
love with me since he was a boy; rather less
than more, perhaps, for that's his way, and not
at all to the detriment of his being quite as
much in love with any number of women
besides. He and his father never got on well.
Mr. Felton did not like 'his ways' as the goodies
and gossips say, and, in particular, he did not like
his being in love with me, for he can't bear me.
Frightfully bad taste, isn't it? Get along, President,"
this to one of the ponies, as she touched
him up with her whip; "you've had walking
enough. Awfully bad taste—thank you, you
needn't say yes; you're looking unutterable
things. Of course I don't mind that particularly,
and I don't care for Arthur Felton in the
ve–ry least," with a most enchanting drawl and
the faintest pout of the crimson lips. "He
made himself a perfect nuisance in Paris, and I
really must have quarrelled with him, if I had
not gone away with some friends, who wouldn't
have Arthur—no, not in the ve–ry least," and
she repeated the before–mentioned little
performance quite enchantingly.

"But you agreed to meet him here?" said
her companion, very moodily.

"Agreed to meet him here! How ridiculous
you are. I gave him rendezvous, which I beg
to observe is not precisely the same thing as
agreeing to meet him."

"Sounds like it," said the gentleman, still
more sulkily.

"Very true; but it isn't. I meant to come
here—I always lay my plans long beforehand—
just at this time, and I thought I might as well
let him come here as have him constantly
teasing me in the mean time. It was a long while
off, remember." And her black eyes danced
with mischief and enticement.

"And where is he now?" asked her
companion, after he had given her another look
which brought the burning colour to her cheeks
once more.

"How on earth should I know?" was her
answer, and as she made it, she turned her head
round and looked him full in the face. "How
on earth should I know?" she repeated. "You
don't imagine, I suppose, that I correspond
with all the friends of my youth. No, no; I
never think of people when they are out of my
sight. I have no one that I care about enough
to think of in absence, and I never write a
letter, if I can possibly avoid it."

"I understood, when Mr. Felton came to
London, he had not heard from his son for some
time, and he has certainly not seen him there."

"Very likely Master Arthur is not a particularly
dutiful son. However, his father will see
him here, if he stays till next week, that's a
fact."

"What sort of person is Mr. Felton's son?
I can't say I admire the old gentleman
much."

"No! Don't get on with him? I should
think not, neither do I; but Arthur's not in the
ve–ry least like him. Not nearly so good–
looking; not like the Feltons, I should say, at all;
like his mother. His cousin, though he's a big
booby, is a good–looking fellow, and looks like a
gentleman. Now that's just what Arthur does
not look like."

"And what is just what he does look like?"
asked her companion, who took what he thought
was a secret pleasure in hearing this unknown
admirer of the beautiful woman who had captivated
his fancy spoken of in depreciating terms.
But he was quite mistaken. Mrs. P. Ireton
Bembridge discerned this amiable sentiment
with perfect distinctness, and gave it all the
nutriment to be supplied by the most
consummate and dexterous coquetry.

"H'm!" she said, with a bewitching air of
thought and deliberation. "What does Arthur
Felton look like? Very like a Yankee, and a
little like a Jew;" and she laughed most
musically.

As Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge drove her grey
ponies towards the Little white town, the carriage
passed, near a turn in one of the level shady
roads, a bench placed between two tall slim trees.
Between the bench and the road lay a broad
pathway, with a grassy edge. A lady, simply
dressed, of a small slight figure, and whose face
was bent downwards, but in whose air there was
unmistakable refinement, was sitting on the
bench, and leaning a little forward, was making
marks upon the ground with her parasol,
less in idleness than in the abstraction of
thought. As the ponies trotted merrily by, and
their mistress laughed, rather loudly but
musically, the lady looked up, and the eyes of the
two women met. The gentleman who sat by
the fair American, and who was on the side of
the carriage nearest to the pathway, was so
absorbed in the animated conversation being
carried on between them, that he did not notice
the solitary figure, nor see that anything had
attracted his companion's attention. Indeed,
the attraction was but momentary; the look
had hardly been interchanged before the
carriage whirled past Harriet Routh.