echer tried to laugh easily at this speech; but it was only a very
poor and faint attempt, after all.

"She thinks _me_ a man of fortune, and _you_ an unblemished gentleman;
and if that be not innocence, I 'd like to know what is! Of where, how,
and with whom we pick up our living, she knows as much as _we_ do about
the Bench of Bishops."

"I must confess I don't think the knowledge would improve her!" said
Beecher, with a laugh.

A fierce and savage glance from Davis, however, very quickly arrested
his jocularity; and Beecher, in a graver tone, resumed: "It was a deuced
fine thing of you, Grog, to do this. There 's not another fellow living
would have bad the head to think of it But now that she has come home
to you, how do you mean to carry on the campaign? A girl like that can't
live secluded from the world,--she must go out into society? Have you
thought of that?"

"I have thought of it," rejoined Davis, bluntly, but in a tone that by
no means invited further inquiry.

"Her style and her manner fit her for the best set anywhere--"

"That's where I intend her to be," broke in Davis.

"I need scarcely tell as clever a fellow as you," said Beecher, mildly,
"that there's nothing so difficult as to find footing among these
people. Great wealth may obtain it, or great patronage. There are women
in London who can do that sort of thing; there are just two or three
such, and you may imagine how difficult it is to secure their favor."

"They 're all cracked teacups, those women you speak of; one has only to
know where the flaw is, and see how easily managed they are!"

Beecher smiled at this remark; he chuckled to himself, too, to see that
for once the wily Grog Davis had gone out of his depth, and adventured
to discuss people and habits of which he knew nothing; but, unwilling to
prolong a controversy so delicate, he hurried away to his room to dress.
Davis, too, retired on a similar errand, and a student of life might
have been amused to have taken a peep into the two dressing-rooms. As
for Beecher, it was but the work of a few minutes to array himself
in dinner costume. It was a routine task that he performed without
a thought on its details. All was ready at his hand; and even to
the immaculate tie, which seemed the work of patience and skill, he
despatched the whole performance in less than a quarter of an hour. Not
so Davis: he ransacked drawers and portmanteaus; covered the bed,
the chairs, and the table with