out noon, however, it arrived from
Donaldson's in a cardboard box, and really seemed too pretty to be
wasted. There, too, were Bridget's initials, neatly engraved on its
face, and, perhaps, after all, Colonel Faversham was reckoning without
his guest. Miss Rosser might refuse to accept his present, whatever it
might be--Carrissima felt very curious to know! She might decline to
go out with him, and then her birthday would be spent in utter
loneliness. Carrissima pictured her with melancholy reminiscences of
her father and mother. Because whatever the girl's faults might be,
she was certainly not lacking in natural affection. Surely some
allowances ought to be made for the circumstances of the case.
Carrissima was excellent at making allowances for people! She was one
of those tiresome, inconsistent young women who remain blind to the
teachings of reason and experience, and ever find some remnants of good
in the rag-bags of humanity.

Bridget had lost her mother when she was eighteen! She had knocked
about with her father for several years since. Of course she ought not
to have encouraged Mark's visits night after night, as doubtless she
had done; but, then, she may have had the intelligence to see that Mark
was a man in a thousand--in a thousand! Mark was a man in a million!

In the end Carrissima left Grandison Square at a few minutes before
four o'clock that afternoon, and having rung the bell at Number 5,
Golfney Place, she was crushed to hear from Miller that Bridget had
been out since a quarter to twelve.

"Oh!" said Carrissima, ashamed of her own artfulness, "I suppose she
went with Colonel Faversham?"

"Yes," returned Miller.

"Do you know where they have gone?" asked Carrissima.

"Colonel Faversham told the chauffeur to drive to Richmond."

"To Richmond--thank you," said Carrissima. "I will come another day."
Then she turned away with the card-case still in her hand and a heavier
weight at her heart. She wished she had never gone to Crowborough that
summer five years ago! Very devoutly she wished that Mark Driver had
not visited the Old Masters' Exhibition. She had not walked far on her
way home when she saw Jimmy Clynesworth coming towards her, and thought
it rather early in the year for him to be wearing a straw hat in London.

Of course he stopped to speak. Jimmy was not the man to allow any one
he knew to pass by, although for once in a way Carrissima would sooner
have avoided the enc