went on, "I don't know: I dare say it's safe enough.
She does know some of those Cockpit fellows; confound her, she knows all
sorts of fellows. But none of them are likely to be up so early in the
day--not up to luncheon anyhow. She says"--and he looked again at the
note--"that she'll be alone; but she won't. Everyone she sees before
lunch she asks to luncheon: everyone she meets before dinner she asks to
dinner. I wish I had her money: it would be simpler and safer by a very
long way than this kind of business. There really seems no end to it
when once you begin. However, here goes," said Mr. Cranley, sitting
down to write a letter at the escritoire which had just served him as a
bulwark and breastwork. "I'll write and accept Probably she'll have no
one with her, but some girl from Chipping Carby, or some missionary from
the Solomon Islands who never heard of a heathen like me."

As a consequence of these reflections, Mr. Cranley arrived, when the
clock was pointing to half-past one, at Mrs. St. John Deloraine's house
in Cheyne Walk. He had scarcely entered the drawing-room before that
lady, in a costume which agreeably became her pleasant English style of
beauty, rushed into the room, tumbling over a favorite Dandie Dinmont
terrier, and holding out both her hands.

The terrier howled, and Mrs. St. John Deloraine had scarcely grasped the
hand which Mr. Cranley extended with enthusiasm, when she knelt on the
carpet and was consoling the Dandie.

"Love in which thy hound has part," quoted Mr. Cranley. And the lady,
rising with her face becomingly flushed beneath her fuzzy brown hair,
smiled, and did not remark the sneer.

"Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Cranley," she said; "and, as I have
put off luncheon till two, _do_ tell me that you know someone who will
suit me for my dear _Bun-house_. I know how much you have always been
interested in our little project."

Mr. Cranley assured her that, by a remarkable coincidence, he knew
the very kind of people she wanted. Alice he briefly described as a
respectable woman of great strength of character, "of body, too, I
believe, which will not make her less fit for the position."

"No," said Mrs. St. John Deloraine, sadly; "the dear girls are sometimes
a little tiresome. On Wednesday, Mrs. Carter, the housekeeper, you know,
went to one of the exhibitions with her _fiance_, and the girls broke
all the windows and almost all the tea-things."

"The woman whom I am happy to