y.

"It is unique," said Wentworth; "and sometimes he tosses the biscuit in
the air when they say 'Trust,' sometimes when they say 'Paid for,' but
generally he drops on all fours and eats it before they have begun."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Samuels. "I am afraid Princess Hohenschreien's
performance will be best after all." Then Wentworth suddenly saw from
her face that some other attraction was approaching from behind him, and
turned quickly round as Mrs. Samuels, with her most beguiling air,
advanced and offered her basket of cakes to Lord Stamfordham.

"Now, milord," she said. "I am sure you must be hungry."

"And what makes you think that?" said Stamfordham, whose air of willing
response and admiration made it quite evident that Mrs. Samuels's
blandishments were not usually exercised in vain. "Do I look pale, or
haggard, or weary?"

"None of these," said Mrs. Samuels; "but I am sure it is a long time
since I had the privilege of offering you a cup of tea at my stall.
Quite half an hour, I should think."

"Quite possible," said Stamfordham. "All I can say is that it seems to
me an eternity since I last had the pleasure of receiving anything at
your hands. Pray give me a bag of those cakes. You baked them yourself,
of course?"

"Of course," Mrs. Samuels said, with a little rippling laugh. And then
in answer to Stamfordham's smile of incredulity, "All is fair in ...
bazaars and war, you know."

In the meantime, Wentworth, enlisted, he himself did not understand how
or why, in the anxious quest in which he saw Pateley and Rachel engaged,
had hurried after Pateley, whose broad back he saw disappearing, to tell
him of Lord Stamfordham's whereabouts. Pateley turned quickly round.
Lord Stamfordham was coming towards them, with Mrs. Samuels, wreathed in
smiles, at his side.

"I think," she was saying, "when you have eaten those cakes you can
drink some more tea, don't you think so?"

"It is not improbable," Stamfordham replied. "But was our bargain that I
was to eat them all myself?"

"Certainly," Mrs. Samuels replied.

"My dear lady," Stamfordham said, "I will engage to eat every one of
them that you have baked, I can't say more. And in the meantime I am
bound on a very foolish errand. I have sworn to go and have my fortune
told," and as Mrs. Samuels's eye, with a careless and ingenuous air,
rested upon Lady Adela's name above the tent, she smiled inwardly at the
thought that what that astute lady might possibl