cries Vera, laughing, and looking with feigned
indecision from one to the other.

"Make haste and decide, my dear," says Mrs. Hazeldine; "for whichever of
you two gentlemen does _not_ take in Miss Nevill must go and take that
eldest Miss Frampton for me."

The eldest Miss Frampton is thirty-five if she is a day; she is large and
bony, much given to beads and bangles, and to talking about the military
men she has known, and whom she usually calls by their surnames alone,
like a man. She goes familiarly amongst her acquaintance by the name of
the Dragoon.

A cold shiver passes visibly down Mr. Wilde's back; unfortunately Miss
Nevill perceives it, and makes up her mind instantly.

"I would not deprive you of so charming a companion," she says, smiling
sweetly at him, and passes her arm through that of the French vicomte.

At dinner, poor Denis Wilde curses Monsieur D'Arblet; Miss Frampton, and
his own fate, indiscriminately and ineffectually. He is sitting exactly
opposite to his divinity, but he cannot even enjoy the felicity of
staring at her, for Miss Frampton will not let him alone. She chatters
unceasingly and gushingly. At an early period of the repast the string of
her amber-bead necklace suddenly gives way with a snap. The beads trickle
slowly down, one by one; half a dozen of them drop with a cracking noise,
like little marbles, upon the polished floor, where there is a general
scramble of waiters and gentlemen under the table together after them;
two fall into her own soup, three more on to Denis Wilde's table-napkin;
as fast as the truants are picked up others are shed down in their wake
from the four apparently inexhaustible rows that garnish her neck.

Miss Frampton bears it all with serene and smiling good temper.

"Dear me, I am really very sorry to give so much trouble. It doesn't
signify in the least, Mr. Wilde--thanks, that is one more. Oh, there goes
another into the sweet-breads; but I really don't mind if they are lost.
Jameson, of the 17th, gave them to me. Do you know Jameson? cousin of
Jameson, in the 9th; he brought them from Italy, or Turkey, or somewhere.
I am sure I don't remember where amber comes from; do you, Mr. Wilde?"

Mr. Wilde, if he is vague as to where it comes from, is quite decided
as to where he would desire it to go. At this moment he had crunched a
tender tooth down upon one of these infernal beads, having helped himself
to it unconsciously out of the sweetbread dish.

Is