of pique and vanity amongst the
others, and so could speak with security.

'My brothers _all_ took tricks,' said one young lady, who had
inherited her mother's delicate beauty, while the rest of the family
resembled a singularly unhandsome father--which enabled her to speak
without very deep resentment.

'So did poor dear papa,' said Gilda, 'but that was the one taken in
fancy dress, and he _would_ go as _Dante_.'

'Nothing could stand against Gurgoyle,' observed Caffyn. 'He was a
sure ace every time. He'll be glad to know he was such a success. You
must tell him, Miss Featherstone.'

'Now I won't have poor Mr. Gurgoyle made fun of,' said Mrs.
Featherstone, but with a considerable return of amiability. 'People
always tell me that with all his plainness he's the most amusing young
man in town, though I confess I never could see any signs of it
myself.'

The fact was that an unlucky epigram by the Mr. Gurgoyle in question
at Mrs. Featherstone's expense, which of course had found its way to
her, had produced a coolness on her part, as Caffyn was perfectly well
aware.

'"_Ars est celare artem_," as Mr. Bancroft remarks at the Haymarket,'
he said lightly. 'Gurgoyle is one of those people who is always put
down as witty till he has the indiscretion to try. _Then_ they put him
down some other way.'

'But why is he considered witty then, if he isn't?' asked Gilda
Featherstone.

'I don't know. I suppose because we like to think Nature makes these
compensations sometimes, but Gurgoyle must have put her out of temper
at the very beginning. She's done nothing in that way for _him_.'

Mrs. Featherstone, although aware that the verdict on the absent
Gurgoyle was far from being a just one, was not altogether above being
pleased by it, and showed it by a manner many degrees more thawed than
that she had originally prescribed to herself in dealing with this
very ineligible young actor.

'Mr. Ashburn,' said Miss Featherstone, after one or two glances in the
direction of Caffyn, who was absorbed in following up the advantage he
had gained with her mother, 'will you come and help me to put these
photos back? There are lots of Bertie's Cambridge friends here, and
you can tell me who those I don't know are.'

So Mark followed her to a side table, and then came the stroke of good
fortune which has been spoken of; for, as he was replacing the
likenesses in the albums in the order they were given to him, he was
given one at the