lent to her governess.

Her intention was not very effective as regards Mrs. Beale. "Mrs. Wix is
too idiotic!" that lady declared.

"But to you, of all people," Sir Claude asked, "what had she to say?"

"Why that, like Mrs. Micawber--whom she must, I think, rather
resemble--she will never, never, never desert Miss Farange."

"Oh I'll make that all right!" Sir Claude cheerfully returned.

"I'm sure I hope so, my dear man," said Mrs. Beale, while Maisie
wondered just how he would proceed. Before she had time to ask Mrs.
Beale continued: "That's not all she came to do, if you please. But
you'll never guess the rest."

"Shall _I_ guess it?" Maisie quavered.

Mrs. Beale was again amused. "Why you're just the person! It must be
quite the sort of thing you've heard at your awful mother's. Have you
never seen women there crying to her to 'spare' the men they love?"

Maisie, wondering, tried to remember; but Sir Claude was freshly
diverted. "Oh they don't trouble about Ida! Mrs. Wix cried to you to
spare ME?"

"She regularly went down on her knees to me."

"The darling old dear!" the young man exclaimed.

These words were a joy to Maisie--they made up for his previous
description of Mrs. Wix. "And WILL you spare him?" she asked of Mrs.
Beale.

Her stepmother, seizing her and kissing her again, seemed charmed with
the tone of her question. "Not an inch of him! I'll pick him to the
bone!"

"You mean that he'll really come often?" Maisie pressed.

Mrs. Beale turned lovely eyes to Sir Claude. "That's not for me to
say--its for him."

He said nothing at once, however; with his hands in his pockets
and vaguely humming a tune--even Maisie could see he was a little
nervous--he only walked to the window and looked out at the Regent's
Park. "Well, he has promised," Maisie said. "But how will papa like it?"

"His being in and out? Ah that's a question that, to be frank with you,
my dear, hardly matters. In point of fact, however, Beale greatly enjoys
the idea that Sir Claude too, poor man, has been forced to quarrel with
your mother."

Sir Claude turned round and spoke gravely and kindly. "Don't be afraid,
Maisie; you won't lose sight of me."

"Thank you so much!" Maisie was radiant. "But what I meant--don't you
know?--was what papa would say to ME."

"Oh I've been having that out with him," said Mrs. Beale. "He'll behave
well enough. You see the great difficulty is that, though he changes
every three days about ev