ough Beecher would have preferred seeing her accept this lesson
with more show of humility, he was, on the whole, well satisfied with
her submission. He watched her as her pen moved across the paper,
and saw that she wrote in a way that indicated calm composure and not
passion. The note was quickly finished; and as she was folding it, she
stopped, and said, "But perhaps you might like to read it?"

"Of course I 'd like to read it," said he, eagerly, taking it op and
reading aloud:--

"'The Viscountess Lackington having received Lord
Lackington's orders to apologize to Georgina, Viscountess
Lackington, for certain expressions which may have offended
her, willingly accepts the task as one likely to indicate to
her Ladyship the propriety of excusing her own conduct to
one who had come to claim her kindness and protection.'

"And would you presume to send her such a note as this?" cried he, as he
crushed it up and flung it into the fire.

"Not now," said she, with a quiet smile.

"Sit down, and then write--"

"I'll not write another," said she, rising. She moved slowly across the
room; and as she gained the door, she turned and said, "If you don't
want Kuffner, I 'd be glad to have him here;" and without awaiting his
reply, she was gone.

"Haven't I made a precious mess of it?" cried Beecher, as he buried his
head between his hands, and sat down before the fire.

CHAPTER XXX. MRS. SEACOLE'S

In a dense fog, and under a thin cold rain, the "Tigris" steamed slowly
into the harbor of Balaklava. She had been chartered by the Government,
and sent out with some seventy thousand pair of shoes, and other like
indispensables for an army much in want, but destined to be ultimately
re-despatched to Constantinople,--some grave omissions in red tapery
having been discovered,--whereby she and the shoes remained till the
conclusion of the war, when the shoes were sold to the Russians, and the
ship returned to England.

Our concern is not, however, with the ship or the shoes, or the patent,
barley, the potted meats, or the "printed instructions" with which she
was copiously provided, but with two passengers who had come up in her
from Constantinople, and had, in a manner, struck up a sort of intimacy
by the way. They were each of them men rather advanced in life; somewhat
ordinary in appearance, of that commonplace turn in look, dress, and
bearing that rarely possesses attraction for the bett