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gether; she didn't know yet. It depended a good deal on whether they could find a house that would please them, for she thought English people were most charming, and they'd been so kind that there wasn't anything she couldn't say about them. Now, where would he advise her to look for a house? "You can have mine, I'm tired of it."

"There's nothing the matter with the things, except that they're there; nor with the house itself, except that I don't know what to do with it. It is always standing in the same place, you see."

"Who lives with you?"
"No one."

"Never been married?"
He shook his head.
"Well, I'd get some relations

"Why, how long have you round me."

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"And then I don't know what to do with the servants." "Well, with us," said Mrs Fiffer-she spoke with a strong American accent 66 they're just the biggest handful we've got, and I'm told they're a worry over here too. How is it?"

"There's nothing the matter with them fundamentally, but I never know where they are or what to say to them, and I get tired of looking at furniture."

"Now, that's a funny thing to say. I expect your things are lovely too?"

"I haven't any."

"Then why in the world did you take a big house in Princes Gate?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I "I should beat my head against the walls of a small one. I'm used to prairiesbut there are none in England, and too many people in London."

She was quite pleased. "That's just what I feel about New York, Mr Wendern. It's all over people, and the way they hustle, why you'd think everyone of them was going to die in about eighteen months' time, and had to hurry all he could into the bit cf life that's left."

After dinner she told Katherine of her conversation with Wendern. "He ought to hear what you think of England," she said as he went up to them. They were standing near the doorway, watching a few arrivals at the belated evening party that was to follow the feast. Mrs Fiffer liked looking at them and thinking that they were second best to herself, who had been thought worthy to sit at the table; they were only given the crumbs from it

in the shape of odds and ends. "there's another English thing collected on a buffet. -poetry, England is full of it."

"I expect she didn't remember she was making a quotation at first," Mrs Fiffer said by way of an apology. Katherine had crossed to the other

"England?" the girl said. "I think it's like no other place in the world, that God tried His 'prentice hand on it when He wanted to make heaven." "That's an idea," he said side of the room. "You see slowly. she's not college reared, as most American girls are now. I don't hold with them myself, and would never let her go. She's had to find herself as I did; but she's had more books to do it with, and seen more, ten times more, than I'd done at her age, and what she's not got in knowledge, Mr Wendern, she's got in high spirit— she knows how she wants to live and what she wants to have and do. I'm so struck with her sometimes-but I sit and say nothing, and wonder what it'll all come to."

"I love its little green fields and its fenced-in gardens and beautiful ways. Best of all, I think, I love its old countryhouses and the legends they've got about them. Why, Mr Wendern, England is hundreds of romances and living pictures -doesn't that strike you?" "I never looked at it from that point of view."

"I love its age so, and all the places that are falling to pieces-did you never realise the music there is in the word medieval?"

"I don't think I ever did." Well, probably you never had occasion to use it in your country any more than they had in mine, so didn't worry about it; but I've always longed to see what it meant; it conjures up visions of knights in armour, and battlements and stained-glass windows, and swords put in patterns on walls, clanging gates and drawbridges, and beautiful ladies riding forth on-didn't they call them palfreys?-and troubadours and Saxons and Danes-"

"You've been reading poetry, Miss Fiffer-'Saxon and Norman and Dane are we'- "

"It's Tennyson, of course," the joy in her face chased the dreamy expression away

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"She's beautiful," Wendern said, surprised at this sudden burst of confidence. He moved forward a chair; she took it gratefully.

"Well, I'm glad you think that-I think it myself, but mothers are often just foolish. Anyway, they seem to be taking to her over here, and the way people send invitations

She turned to

listen to the wiles of a dowager
who had eligible sons
had heard that the American
woman was rich. She planted
herself down beside her.

"That's a handsome girl," Sir Charles Pierce said to Wendern as they stood together watching the room.

"She looks as if Nature still held her unadulterated; and

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she walks as if she remembered "That would be lovely, and the backwoodsthen we would see the inside of your house; you said we might take it off you; but we wouldn't like to drive you away."

"Not much backwoods about her," Sir Charles answered. "I should call it New York or Chicago-out of which her father collected a few million dollars which were put to her account when he went to the next world."

"That's against her" Sir Charles covered covered his density with, "The mother's rather a corker, isn't she?"

"Not bad; she looks as if she'd been used to simpler things than she has now-it's to her credit that she doesn't forget them." He went back to her presently. He liked the freshness of her, the suggestion that the wiles of New York and London had surprised but not overwhelmed her. "I've been wondering," he said, "whether, if you are free, it would be possible to persuade you and Miss Fiffer to lunch with me to-morrow at Princes Gate?"

"Why, I'd be delighted, but I think Lord Derbyshire said he was coming to us, and I wouldn't like to throw him over, for he's doing his very best to make us enjoy this country."

"I'll ask him, too, if like?"

you

"There's one to let round the corner, that is to say at right angles to mine-virtually a few doors off

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"We'd be neighbours."
"If I stayed-

"You'd have to stay if we came."

He looked across at Katherine. "I will," he answered.

The next morning, the day the Fiffers were coming to luncheon, he realised, as he often had done lately, that household matters bored him. "I must get some one to look after them," he thought; "it's a woman's work to consider what one will eat and what flowers shall be put on the table." His eye caught an advertisement in The Times,' "A young widow, thirty-two' -Humph, rather young, perhaps she's older-women always lie about their ages'wishes to find a post as ladyhousekeeper to a gentleman of position'-well, I don't know about the position, but it might be as well to see what her views are." He sat down and wrote to her.

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs Berwick was sorely perplexed; she knew as little about Wendern, after four months, as she had done in the first week, except for the fact, gradually grasped, that

VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLV.

money was not forthcoming from him. He never seemed to think about it. The attributes of wealth were about her, but actual money she never saw.

She knew there were

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many unpaid bills, that even tax-gatherers were sent empty away, and the rent of the house was accumulating; yet though he never for a moment struck her as being an adventurer, nor dishonourable, Wendern was quite unconcerned. Sometimes a shade of anxiety seemed to pass over him, but that was all. He was kind and considerate to those about him; he had always a reserved and detached sympathy for pain or trouble brought to his notice; but there seemed to be an impalpable fence round him that kept would-be intruders at a mental distance.

"If I could only get hold of that Mr Parker," she thought again one morning a week after Mrs Rigg's visit, "I might know something." She pushed aside the tradesmen's books and the little white china slate she had made ready for the cook, and putting her elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hands while she tried to solve the riddle of the situation. But it was useless, only going up and down a cul-de-sac. "There is nothing to do but wait," she told herself. "It is wonderful how many things smooth themselves out just by waiting -still I, for one, simply must have some money soon."

Rogers entered. She looked up irritably these entrances of Rogers in the morning were getting on her nerves. "Oh, what is it?"

"A man has come with a waggon-load of orange-trees, ma'am. Mr Wendern ordered them yesterday for the conservatory and balconies."

"Good heavens! She was thrown off her guard, a dazed smile spread over her face. "A waggon-load of orangetrees

"He says he was told most of them were to go in the dining-room."

"Have them put there. I'll come and look at them presently.' In the dining

room were two wide windows with a glass door between that opened, as the French window in the morning-room did, on to the little private garden, and led to the lawn beyond. A thick growth of tall trees in tubs had given that end of the dining-room the appearance of a conservatory, almost of a wood. They made the light somewhat dim, but this had been counteracted by other means. The house had been reconstructed inside by vious tenant, and was the only one that had the whole width at the back so arranged that it opened on to the garden.

Rogers went on: "And Mr Joe Parker is here."

She gave a gasp of relief. How lucky that he should come now while Wendern was out of the way. "Oh, ask him to come in; I hope you haven't kept him waiting in the hall?"

"He's brushing himself down he says he's a bit dusty." A moment later "the backwoodsman" appeared. His face lighted up at seeing her; he pulled himself together with an air of remembering that he had just brushed his coat; & smart little woman, he had called her to himself on his last visit; he was glad to see

her again and alone, "though it makes one a bit nervous,' he thought.

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"Good morning, marm; I hope I see you quite well?"

She looked up eager and anxious. "How do you do? I am so glad to see you," then added discreetly, as became a lady-housekeeper, "Mr Wendern will be here directly; he has been expecting you, I know."

"You don't mean to say he isn't down yet?"

"Oh yes, of course he's down; he generally rides before breakfast-now, I think, he is in the garden," she went halfway to the window and looked out.

He caught the out of her dress sideways; she had a neat little figure, he thought. "Well, I'm not in a hurry, delighted meanwhile to have your company."

"I fear you had so little time with your friend the other day." She went back to her place by the table and prepared to begin her quest, but she felt that it had to be done with discretion.

"Not much, marm, not much; get more now perhaps." "Oh, do sit down," he was still standing, "he is certain to be here directly. How strange it must be for you two from a great country to meet in this little island!"

Mr Parker looked at the chair, shook it, and cautiously seated himself. "Not unpleas ant, marm, I can assure you. And if England is little, why it does its best to make up for it."

"Yes?"

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"What does it chiefly produce?"

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"Wendern's? Well, he could tell you that better than I." There was amusement in his voice, he gave an inward wink with his off eye. "The little woman's trying to draw me,' he thought; "I don't think she'll get much to go on with." But he rather liked her for it; quick wit appealed to him, especially in her sex. "You see, as a rule, a man is usually more interested in his own stock than in any one else's."

"And are you a millionaire too?" Her voice was full of inquiring innocence.

"A millionaire toe,"" he chuckled, "no, marm, I'm not. I represent wool and a failure. A good deal of Australia did that at one time, lately it's picked up a bit. This last year or two I have been in South Africa, or I should be poorer than I am; but I came to England round by Melbourne for all that. Tell me about

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