saw the gates of the Park before her,
she was at once exceedingly tired and almost faint from hunger. Here
was the hotel in which they had dined: should she enter? The place
seemed very grand and forbidding: she had scarcely even looked at it
as she went up the steps with her husband by her side. However, she
would venture, and accordingly she went up and into the vestibule,
looking rather timidly about. A young gentleman, apparently not a
waiter, approached her and seemed to wait for her to speak. It was a
terrible moment. What was she to ask for? and could she ask it of this
young man? Fortunately, he spoke first, and asked her if she wished to
go into the coffee-room, and if she expected any one.

"No, I do not expect any one," she said; and she knew that he would
perceive the peculiarity of her accent; "but if you will be kind
enough to tell me where I may have a biscuit--"

It occurred to her that to go into the Star and Garter for a biscuit
was absurd; and she added wildly, "--or anything to eat."

The young man obviously regarded her with some surprise; but he was
very courteous, and showed her into the coffee-room and called a
waiter to her. Moreover, he gave permission for Bras to be admitted
into the room, Sheila promising that he would lie under the table
and not budge an inch. Then she looked round. There were only three
persons in the room--one, an old lady seated by herself in a far
corner, the other two being a couple of young folks too much engrossed
with each other to mind any one else. She began to feel more at home.
The waiter suggested various things for lunch, and she made her choice
of something cold. Then she mustered up courage to ask for a glass of
sherry. How she would have enjoyed all this as a story to tell to her
husband but for that incident of the morning! She would have gloried
in her outward bravery, and made him smile with a description of
her inward terror. She would have written about it to the old man in
Borva, and bid him consider how she had been transformed, and what
strange scenes Bras was now witnessing. But all that was over. She
felt as if she could no longer ask her husband to be amused by her
childish experiences; and as for writing to her father, she dared
not write to him in her present mood. Perhaps some happier time would
come. Sheila paid her bill. She had heard her husband and Mr. Ingram
talk about tipping waiters, and knew that she ought to give something
to the m