hear of it. A man of his stamp would have been of immense
value to the country. He had begun to take a very leading part in local
matters. I trust he will come round."

"I fear he will never be the same again. I doubt if he will be able to
direct his own affairs as he used."

"That's bad! You are not in the business, I believe?"

"No; I never took any part in it. I almost regret I did not. It would, I
imagine, be a relief to my father, now that his mind is less clear, to
know that I was at the helm. But we have a capital man as manager, quite
devoted to the house. I shall get my father down to the country as soon
as I can, and I trust he'll come round."

"No doubt he will. He was wonderfully hale and strong for his years."

"Ay! how d'ye do, Bertie?" interrupted the first speaker, holding out
his hand to a young man who came up from Hyde Park and seemed about to
pass with a smile and a nod. "Who would have thought of meeting you in
these godless regions? I hear you are busy 'slumming' from morning till
night."

"Well, Colonel," returned Bertie--a slight, fair, boyish-looking man--"I
am so far false to my new vocation as to have lost some irrevocable
moments looking at the horses and horsewomen in the Row."

"Aha! the old leaven, my dear boy! You are on the brink of
perdition.--Don't you know Bertie Payne?" he continued, to his newly met
friend. "He was one of my subs before he renounced the devil and all his
works. He was with us at Barrackbore when you were in India."

"I do not think we have met," the other was beginning, when a young
lady--toward whom the Colonel had already cast some sharp, admiring
glances as she stood on the curbstone holding a hand of the smaller of
two little boys in smart sailor suits--uttered a cry of dismay. The
elder child had rushed into the road, as if to stop a passing omnibus,
not seeing that a hansom was coming up at speed.

The young man called Bertie dashed forward, and barely succeeded in
snatching the child from under the wheel. A scramble of horses' feet, an
imprecation or two shouted by the irritated driver, a noisy declaration
from the "fare" that he should lose his train, and the scuffle was over.

The little man, held firmly by the shoulder, was marched back to his
young guardian.

"Thank you!--oh, thank you a thousand times! You have saved his life!"
she exclaimed, fervently, in unsteady tones. Then to the child: "How
could you break your promise to stay by me, Cec