ng
his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of
an author's life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in
circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at
them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received,
and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that
there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor.

One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at the
same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and perhaps it
was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire after her.

"She has not been well," said Lady Probyn, "and they are sending her
back to England; the climate doesn't suit her. She is to make her home
with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always been my
favourite niece. I don't know what it is about her that is so taking;
she is not half so pretty as the others."

"But so much more charming," I said. "I wonder she has not married out
in India, as everyone prophesied."

"And so do I," said her aunt. "However, poor child, no doubt, after
having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of
Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone again."

"Do you think that affair ever went very deep?" I ventured to ask. "It
seemed to me that she looked miserable during her engagement, and happy
when it was broken off."

"Quite so," said Lady Probyn; "I noticed the same thing. It was
nothing but a mistake. They were not in the least suited to each other.
By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is married."

"Derrick?" I exclaimed; "oh, no, that is a mistake. It is merely one
of the hundred and one reports that are for ever being set afloat about
him."

"But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said Lady Probyn, by no means
convinced.

"Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no doubt,
and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he marry? He has
been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since our cruise in the
Aurora."

Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation.

"Poor fellow!" she said, after a minute's thought; "that explains much
to me."

She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our
tete-a-tete was interrupted.

Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared
chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party, Derrick
came in with a fac