as people said she
was? Thus had Patricia spoken in the privacy of her chamber, at that
hour when ladies do up their hair for the night, and discourse of
mysteries. It is at this time they are said to babble out their hearts
to one another; and so, beyond doubt, this must have been the real state
of the case.

As Patricia admitted, she had given up bridge and taken to literature
only during the past year. She might more honestly have said within the
last two weeks. In any event, she now conversed of authors with a fitful
persistence like that of an ill-regulated machine. Her comments were
delightfully frank and original, as she had an unusually good memory. Of
two books she was apt to prefer the one with the wider margin, and she
was becoming sufficiently familiar with a number of poets to quote them
inaccurately.

We have all seen John Charteris's portraits, and most of us have read
his books--or at least, the volume entitled _In Old Lichfield_, which
caused the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_ to apostrophize its author as a
"Child of Genius! whose ardent soul has sounded the mysteries of life,
whose inner vision sweeps over ever widening fields of thought, and
whose chiseled phrases continue patriotically to perpetuate the beauty
of Lichfield's past." But for present purposes it is sufficient to say
that this jewelsmith of words was slight and dark and hook-nosed, and
that his hair was thin, and that he was not ill-favored. It may be of
interest to his admirers--a growing cult--to add that his reason for
wearing a mustache in a period of clean-shaven faces was that, without
it, his mouth was not pleasant to look upon.

"Heigho!" Patricia said, at length, with a little laugh; "it is very
strange that both of our encumbrances should arrive on the same day!"

"It is unfortunate," Mr. Charteris admitted, lazily; "but the blessed
state of matrimony is liable to these mishaps. Let us be thankful that
my wife's whim to visit her aunt has given us, at least, two perfect,
golden weeks. Husbands are like bad pennies; and wives resemble the cat
whose adventures have been commemorated by one of our really popular
poets. They always come back."

Patricia communed with herself, and to Charteris seemed, as she sat in
the chequered sunlight, far more desirable than a married woman has any
right to be.

"I wish--" she began, slowly. "Oh, but, you know, it was positively
criminal negligence not to have included a dozen fairies among