h them when I
like.

"'It don't cost no more for five than for four,' Mr. Rossiter-Browne
says, and as juicy beefsteaks and mutton chops and real cream have a
better relish than rolls and tea, I accept their hospitality in this as
in many other things.

"They take me everywhere, and I am really quite useful to them in
various ways. None of them speak French at all except Augusta, and she
very badly. But she is improving rapidly, for I hear her read both
French and Italian every day, and help her with her pronunciation. Then
I have introduced them to a great many people, among whom are some
English lords and ladies and German barons and baronesses; and, as all
Americans dote on titles, notwithstanding their boasted democracy, so
Mrs. Rossiter-Browne is not an exception, but almost bursts with dignity
when she speaks to her Yankee friends of what Lady So-and-so said to her
and what she said to Baron Blank. She nearly fell on her face when I
introduced her to Lord Hardy, who has returned from Egypt and was here
for a few days. He took to her wonderfully, or pretended that he did,
and she was weak enough to think he had an eye to Augusta's charms, and
asked if I supposed him serious in his attentions to her daughter, and
what kind of a husband he would make. What an absurd idea! Lord Hardy
and Augusta Browne! I laughed till I cried when I told Ted about it and
asked him what he thought of it.

"'I might do worse,' he said, and then walked away, and that afternoon
took Mrs. Browne and Augusta over to Villefranche.

"Ted is very much changed from the boy whom I smuggled into the
play-room at Monte Carlo as my Cousin Susan, and I can't get him near
there now. It seems that he lost a great deal of money one night, and
actually left the Casino with the intention to kill himself. But he had
not the courage to do it, though he told me he put the muzzle of the
pistol to his forehead, when a thought of his mother stayed his hand and
the suicide was prevented. She was in heaven, he said, and he wanted to
see her again. If he killed himself he knew he should not, and so he
concluded to live, but made a vow never to play again, and he has kept
it and become almost as big a spoony as Jack Trevellian. By the way, I
saw Trevellian the other day, and when I said something about hoping to
pay him his ten pounds soon, he told me _you_ had paid it. Very kind in
you, I am sure, but I don't see where you got the money. You might have
kept