id, calmly.

"I was thinking," he said, with some hesitation, "that if I could bribe
Madame Potecki to leave her music-lessons--and take charge of you--and
bring you to America--and you and she might live there until you are
twenty-one--but I see it is impossible. It is too selfish. I should not
have thought of it. What are two years, Natalie?"

The girl answered nothing; she was thinking deeply. When she next spoke,
it was about Lord Evelyn, and of the probability of his crossing to the
States, and remaining there for a year or two; and she wanted to know
more about the great country beyond the seas, and what was Philadelphia
like.

Well, it was not to be expected that these two, so busy with their own
affairs, were likely to notice much that was passing around them, as the
forenoon sped rapidly away, and Natalie had to think of getting home
again. But the little German maid servant was not so engrossed. She was
letting her clear, observant blue eyes stray from the pretty young
ladies riding in the Row to the people walking under the trees, and from
them again to the banks of the Serpentine, where the dogs were barking
at the ducks. In doing so she happened to look a little bit behind her;
then suddenly she started, and said to herself, '_Herr Je!_' But the
little maid had her wits about her. She pretended to have seen nothing.
Gradually, however, she lessened the distance between herself and her
young mistress; then, when she was quite up to her, and walking abreast
with her, she said, in a low, quick voice.

"Fraulein! Fraulein!"

"What is it, Anneli?"

George Brand was listening too. He wondered that the girl seemed so
excited, and yet spoke low, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

"Ah, do not look round, Fraulein!" said she, in the same hurried way.
"Do not look round! But it is the lady who gave you the locket. She is
walking by the lake. She is watching you."

Natalie did not look round. She turned to her companion, and said,
without any agitation whatever,

"Do you remember, dearest? I showed you the locket, and told you about
my mysterious visitor. Now Anneli says she is walking by the side of the
lake. I may go and speak to her, may I not? Because it was so wicked of
Calabressa to say some one had stolen the locket, and wished to restore
it after many years. I never had any such locket."

She was talking quite carelessly; it was Brand himself who was most
perturbed. He knew well who that strang