s sent me as a Christmas present by Mr.
Lehmann."

"It is excellent," Lionel assured her, "but I must keep my head clear if
I am to find my way into Park Lane; after that, it will be easy enough
getting home."

"But there's Jim's room," she exclaimed.

"Oh, no, thank you," he said; "I shall get down there without any
trouble."

And then she went to a cabinet that formed part of a book-case, and
returned with a cigar-box in her hand.

"I am not so sure of these," she said. "They are some I got when papa
was last in town, and he seemed to think them tolerable."

"Oh, but I sha'n't smoke, thanks; no, no, I couldn't think of it!" he
protested. "You'll soon be coming down again to breakfast."

"To please me, Mr. Moore," she said, somewhat authoritatively. "I assure
you there's nothing in the world I like so much as the smell of cigars."

What was she going to say next? But he took a cigar and lit it, and
again she filled up his glass, which he had not emptied; and they set to
talking about the Royal Academy of Music, while she nibbled Lychee nuts,
and her brother Jim subsided into a French novel. Miss Burgoyne was a
sharp and shrewd observer; she had had a sufficiently varied career, and
had come through some amusing experiences. She talked well, but on this
evening, or morning, rather, always on the good-natured side; if she
described the foibles of any one with whom she had come in contact, it
was with a laugh. Lionel was inclined to forget that outer world of
thick, cold fog, so warm and pleasant was the bright and pretty room, so
easily the time seemed to pass.

However, he had to tear himself away in the end. She insisted on his
having a muffler of Jim's to wrap round his throat; both she and her
brother went down-stairs to see him out; and then, with a hasty
good-bye, he plunged into the dark. He had some difficulty in crossing
to the top of Park Lane, for there were wagons come in from the country
waiting for the daylight to give them some chance of moving on; but
eventually he found himself in the well-known thoroughfare, and
thereafter had not much trouble in getting down to his rooms in
Piccadilly. This time he went to bed without sitting up in front of the
fire in aimless reverie.

This was not the last he was to hear of that adventure. Two days
afterwards the foreshadowed paragraph appeared in an evening paper; and
from thence it was copied into all the weekly periodicals that deal more
or less direc