great world had cleared off to act tragedy and comedy by the ocean
shore, or the invalid's well, or the gambler's green baize.

Bertram--one of that great and flourishing class of whom Scandal says
"she doesn't know how they do it, or who pays for it"--albeit a bad
match, even for Miss Tayleure, was, as I have said, in good English and
French society, and drove his phaeton. He was saluted on his way along
the Champs Elysees and by the lake, by many, and by some ladies who were
still unaccountably lingering in Paris. A superb little Victoria passed.
Bertram raised his hat.

"An Irish girl," he said, "of superb beauty."

At the Madrid we met a few people we knew; and, driving home, Bertram
saluted Miss Tayleure, who was crawling round the lake with her twin
sister, and was provoked to be recognised by a man of fashion in a hack
vehicle in the month of August.

[Illustration: BOIS DE BOULOGNE.]

"Charming evening they're having," said Bertram: "taking out their
watches every two minutes to be quite sure they shall get back within
the hour and a half which they have made up their minds to afford.
Beastly position!"

"What! living for appearances?"

"Just so; with women especially. Their dodges are extraordinary.
Tayleure would cheapen a penny loaf, and run down the price of a box of
lucifer matches. There's a chance for you! She would be an economical
wife; but then, my dear fellow, she would spend all the savings on
herself. Her virtue is like Gibraltar!"

"And would be safe as unintrenched tableland, I should think."

"Hang it!" Bertram handsomely interposed, "let us drop poor Tayleure.
She believes that her hour of happiness has to be rung in yet; and she
is always craning out of the window to catch the first silver echoes of
the bells. The old gentlewoman is happy."

"Suppose you tell me something about your Irish beauty," I suggested.

"Quite a different story, my good Q.M. Wait till I get clear of this
clumsy fellow ahead. So, so, gently. Now, Miss Trefoil; the Trefoil is a
girl whose success I can understand perfectly. To begin with--the girl
is educated. In the second place, she is, beyond all dispute, a
beautiful woman. There is not another pair of violet eyes in all
Paris--I mean in the season--to be matched with hers. Milk and
roses--nothing more--for complexion: and _no_ paint; which makes her
light sisters--accomplished professors of the art of _maquillage_--hate
her. A foot!" Bertram kissed the