d we are to each other."

"Possibly, Mrs. Carr, possibly; at present all that I see is that you
have had a great opportunity, and have failed to avail yourself of it.
My only consolation is that the loss will be yours, and my only regret
is that I have had the trouble of coming to this place for nothing.
However, there is a ship due to-morrow, and I shall sail in her."

"I am sorry to have been the cause of bringing you here, Lord Minster,
and still more sorry that you should feel obliged to cut short your
stay. Good-bye, Lord Minster; we part friends, I hope?"

"Oh, certainly, Mrs. Carr. I wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Carr,"
and his lordship marched out of Mildred's life.

"There goes my chance of becoming the wife of a prime minister, and
making a figure in history," said that lady, as she watched his tall
figure stalking stiffly down the avenue. "Well, I am glad of it. I
would just as soon have married a speech-making figure-head stuffed
full of the purest Radical principles."

On the following day Arthur met Lady Florence again in the town.

"Where have you been to, Lady Florence?" he said.

"To see my brother off," she answered, without any signs of deep
grief.

"What, has he gone already?"

"Yes; your friend Mrs. Carr has been too many for poor James."

"What! do you mean that he has been proposing?"

"Yes, and got more than he bargained for."

"Is he cut up?"

"He, no, but his vanity is. You see, Mr. Heigham, it is this way. My
brother may be a very great man and a pillar of the State, and all
that sort of thing. I don't say he isn't; but from personal experience
I _know_ that he is an awful prig, and thinks that all women are
machines constructed to advance the comfort of your noble sex. Well,
he has come down a peg or two, that's all, and he don't like it. Good-
bye; I'm in a hurry."

Lady Florence was nothing if not outspoken.

CHAPTER XLIII

A week or so after the departure of Lord Minster, Mildred suggested
that they should, on the following day, vary their amusements by going
up to the Convent, a building perched on the hills some thousand feet
above the town of Funchal, in palanquins, or rather hammocks swung
upon long poles. Arthur, who had never yet travelled in these
luxurious conveyances, jumped at the idea, and even Miss Terry, when
she discovered that she was to be carried, made no objection. The
party was completed by the addition of a newly-