ervened to solve it. Hovering, as it
were, with one leg raised before the gladiatorial arena of musical
London, where all were waiting to turn their thumbs down on the figure of
the native Potts, he had received a letter from his mother's birthplace.
It was inscribed: "Egregio Signor Pozzi." He was saved. By the simple
inversion of the first two words, the substitution of z's for t's,
without so fortunately making any difference in the sound, and the
retention of that i, all London knew him now to be the rising pianist.

He was a quiet, well-mannered youth, invaluable just then to Mrs.
Tallents Smallpeace, a woman never happy unless slightly leading a genius
in strings.

Cecilia, while engaging them to right and left in her half-sympathetic,
faintly mocking way--as if doubting whether they really wanted to see her
or she them--heard a word of fear.

"Mr. Purcey."

'Oh Heaven!' she thought.

Mr. Purcey, whose A.i. Damyer could be heard outside, advanced in his
direct and simple way.

"I thought I'd give my car a run," he said. "How's your sister?" And
seeing Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, he added: "How do you do? We met the
other day."

"We did," said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, whose little eyes were
sparkling. "We talked about the poor, do you remember?"

Mr. Purcey, a sensitive man if you could get through his skin, gave her a
shrewd look. 'I don't quite cotton to this woman,' he seemed saying;
'there's a laugh about her I don't like.'

"Ah! yes--you were tellin' me about them."

"Oh, Mr. Purcey, but you had heard of them, you remember!"

Mr. Purcey made a movement of his face which caused it to seem all jaw.
It was a sort of unconscious declaration of a somewhat formidable
character. So one may see bulldogs, those amiable animals, suddenly
disclose their tenacity.

"It's rather a blue subject," he said bluntly.

Something in Cecilia fluttered at those words. It was like the saying of
a healthy man looking at a box of pills which he did not mean to open.
Why could not she and Stephen keep that lid on, too? And at this moment,
to her deep astonishment, Stephen entered. She had sent for him, it is
true, but had never expected he would come.

His entrance, indeed, requires explanation.

Feeling, as he said, a little "off colour," Stephen had not gone to
Richmond to play golf. He had spent the day instead in the company of
his pipe and those ancient coins, of which he had the best collection of
a