ent frame of mind, for, however much he
might laugh at Blanche and her light eyebrows, and ridicule his mother's
plans for him in that quarter, he was not at all indifferent to the ten
thousand a year, and might perhaps wish to have it. Consequently he must
not drive Blanche too far, for she had a temper and a will, and there
was another cousin one degree further removed than himself, a
good-natured, good-looking and highly-aristocratic Jack Trevellian, who
was thirty years old, and a great favorite in the best society which
London afforded, and who, if a great-uncle and two cousins were to die
without heirs, would become Sir Jack, and who, it was thought, had an
eye on the ten thousand a year. So Neil was very gracious, and sugared
Blanche's strawberries for her at breakfast, and read to her after
breakfast, and staid at home to lunch, and never mentioned Bessie, or
hinted that he would much rather be sitting with her on the old
hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Buncher's parlor than in that elegantly
furnished boudoir, and when the hour for driving came, and his mother
complained of a headache, and asked him to go with Blanche, he consented
readily, but suggested that she leave her poodle at home, as one puppy
was enough for her, he said.

And so about five o'clock the McPherson carriage drove into the park
near Apsley House, and in it sat Miss Blanche, gorgeous in light-blue
silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red
parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in
smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark
face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her
side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of
Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she
would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her
among the multitude which thronged the park that afternoon.

Bessie was there, and had been for more than an hour, sitting with her
father near one of the entrances from Piccadilly, and wholly unconscious
of the attention she was attracting with her beautiful, fresh young
face, her animated gestures and eager remarks to her father as she
watched the passers-by, and wondered who was who, and wished Neil was
there to tell her.

"I'd like to see a real duchess, and not mistake a barmaid for one," she
said; and then a pleasant-looking man, who was standing near, and had
heard her r