hion in which
he talked of marriage and the condition of a married man, but she
would rather have not heard him talk so. Moreover, she was aware that
in the gentlest possible fashion Mrs. Lorraine was making fun of her
companion, and exposing him to small and graceful shafts of ridicule;
while he seemed, on the whole, to enjoy these attacks.

The ingenuous self-love of Lord Arthur Redburn, M.P., was severely
wounded by the notion that, after all, he had been made a cat's-paw
of by a jealous wife. He had been flattered by this girl's exceeding
friendliness; he had given her credit for a genuine impulsiveness
which seemed to him as pleasing as it was uncommon; and he had, with
the moderation expected of a man in politics who hoped some day to
assist in the government of the nation by accepting a junior lordship,
admired her. But was it all pretence? Was she paying court to him
merely to annoy her husband? Had her enthusiasm about the shooting of
red-deer been prompted by a wish to attract a certain pair of eyes at
the other side of the table? Lord Arthur began to sneer at himself for
having been duped. He ought to have known. Women were as much women
in a Hebridean island as in Bayswater. He began to treat Sheila with a
little more coolness, while she became more and more preoccupied with
the couple across the table, and sometimes was innocently rude in
answering his questions somewhat at random.

When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine
put her hand within Sheila's arm and led her to the entrance to the
conservatory. "I hope we shall be friends," she said.

"I hope so," said Sheila, not very warmly.

"Until you get better acquainted with your husband's friends you will
feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose."

"A little," said Sheila.

"It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could
understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don't drink,
talking a few common-places and yawning."

"Why do they do it, then?" said Sheila.

"They don't do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and
customs of the ancients."

"What do you know about the manners of the ancients?" said Mrs.
Kavanagh, tapping her daughter's shoulder; as she passed with a sheet
of music.

"I have studied them frequently, mamma," said the daughter with
composure, "--in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens."

The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on t