ace."

"Your--er--pardon madam," he answered a little diffidently, "I was but
now thinking of taking--er--my departure----"

"Go sir--O no sir! Tut Major and fie! What would Betty think of your
so sudden desertion? Besides, I feel talkative--let us sit and tattle
awhile, let us conspire together to the future good of my naughty niece
and your wild nephew--Pancras. Though, by the way, sir, I didn't know
Pancras had an uncle."

"Nor has he, mam," answered the Major, escorting her out upon the
terrace and sitting down rather unwillingly, "I am but his uncle
by--er--adoption, as 'twere."

"Adoption, sir?"

"He adopted me years ago--he was but a child then, d'ye see, and
something solitary."

"Mm!" said Lady Belinda thoughtfully, viewing the Major's courtly
figure again, "Indeed you are looking vastly well to-day, sir--grey is
such an angelic tint--so spiritual! And young--I protest you look as
young as Pancras himself!" The Major flushed and shifted uneasily on
his seat. "And pray why doth Pancras tarry so long in London?"

"He writes that he is stayed by affairs of moment, mam."

"Then I vow 'tis most provoking in him! Here are you and I both
a-burning to marry him to Bet--aren't we, dear Major?"

"Why as to that, mam--er--ah----" The Major grew muffled and
incoherent.

"And here's Betty so carelessly rampageous--so, so lost to all sense of
feminine weakness, alack!"

"Weakness?" murmured the Major.

"And so masculinely audacious! O dear sir, the vain hours I have spent
trying to instil into her a little ladylike languor, a soft and
feminine meekness! But alas! Betty is anything but meek--now is she?"

"Why--ah--perhaps not, mam--not exactly meek, as 'twere--and yet----"

"And she fears nought i' the world, living or dead, but a mouse!"

"But pray, mam, what should she fear?"

"La sir, what but your naughty, wicked sex. I vow, ere to-day, I've
swooned at the merest sight of a man!"

"You--you've conquered the habit, I trust, mam?" enquired the Major a
little anxiously.

"Indeed no, dear Major, I fear I never shall!"

"You don't feel any--inclination--now, mam?"

"Nay sir, unless you give me cause----"

"Egad, mam, I won't! Trust me----"

"Trust a man? Never, sir, 'tis a naughty sex. But talking of Bet, her
head is quite turned, she suffers constantly from a surfeit of
worshipping wooers, her will is their law, her merest glance or gesture
a command--see her yonder, surrounded by