d Lady Vandeleur, for she
called him by name like a child or a domestic servant, "that you never
by any chance do what the general tells you. I shall be sorry to lose
you, but since you cannot stay longer in a house where you have been
insulted, I shall wish you good-bye, and I promise you to make the
general smart for his behavior."

"My lady," said he, "what is an insult? I should think little indeed of
any one who could not forgive them by the score. But to leave one's
friends; to tear up the bonds of affection----"

He was unable to continue, for his emotion choked him, and he began to
weep.

Lady Vandeleur looked at him with a curious expression.

"This little fool," she thought, "why should he not become my servant
instead of the general's? He is good-natured, obliging, and understands
dress; and besides, it will keep him out of mischief."

That night she talked over the general, who was already somewhat ashamed
of his vivacity; and Harry was transferred to the feminine department,
where his life was little short of heavenly. He was always dressed with
uncommon nicety, wore delicate flowers in his button-hole, and could
entertain a visitor with tact and pleasantry.

One fine morning he came into the drawing-room and began to arrange some
music on the top of the piano. Lady Vandeleur, at the other end of the
apartment, was speaking somewhat eagerly with her brother, Charlie
Pendragon, an elderly young man, much broken with dissipation and very
lame of one foot. The private secretary, to whose entrance they paid no
regard, could not avoid overhearing a part of their conversation.

"To-day or never," said the lady. "Once and for all, it shall be done
to-day."

"To-day, it must be," replied the brother, with a sigh. "But it is a
false step, a ruinous step, Clara; and we shall live to repent it
dismally."

Lady Vandeleur looked her brother steadily and somewhat strangely in the
face.

"You forget," she said; "the man must die at last."

"Upon my word, Clara," said Pendragon, "I believe you are the most
heartless rascal in England."

"You men," she returned, "are so coarsely built, that you can never
appreciate a shade of meaning. You are yourselves rapacious, violent,
immodest, careless of distinction; and yet the least thought for the
future shocks you in a woman. I have no patience with such stuff. You
would despise in a common banker the imbecility that you expect to find
in us."

"You are very lik