ion to herself--and
the sooner the better!"

"Yes, but--" Lionel said, as if afraid.

"Oh, I know," Maurice said, confidently. "Tell Nina that you are not yet
quite recovered--that you have need of her care--and she will go to the
world's end with you. Only you must get married first, for the sake of
appearances."

"What will she say, Maurice?" he asked again, as if there were some
curious doubt, or perhaps merely timidity, in his mind.

"I think I know, but I am not going to tell," his friend answered,
lightly. "I am off up-stairs now. I will send Nina down; but without a
word of warning. You'll have to lead up to it yourself--and good-luck to
you, my boy!" And therewith Maurice departed to seek out Nina in the
chamber above; and as he went up the stairs he was saying to himself,
"Well, well; and so Miss Burgoyne did that of her own free will? I may
have done the young woman some injustice. Perhaps she is not so selfish
and hard after all. Wish I had been more civil to her."

Meanwhile Miss Burgoyne and her brother were walking in the direction of
Regent Street.

"Now, Jim," she said, with almost a gay air, "I have just completed a
most delicate and difficult negotiation, and I feel quite exhausted. You
must take me into a restaurant and give me the very nicest and neatest
bit of luncheon you can possibly devise--all pretty little trifles, for
we mustn't interfere with dinner; and I am going to see how you can do
it--"

"Well, but, Katie," he said, frowning, "where do you suppose--"

"Oh, don't he stupid!" she exclaimed, slipping her purse into his hand.
"I am going to judge of your _savoir faire_; I will see whether you get
a nice table; whether you order the proper things; whether you command
sufficient attention--"

"I was never taught to bully waiters," said he.

"To bully waiters!--is that your notion of _savoir faire_?" she
answered, lightly. "My dear Jim, the bullying of a waiter is the most
obvious and outward sign of the ingrained, incurable cad. No, no. That
is what I do not expect of you, Jim. And I am going to leave the whole
affair in your hands; for while you are ordering for me a most elegant
little luncheon, I have an extremely important letter to send off."

So it was that when brother and sister were seated at a small table on
the ground-floor of a well-known Regent Street restaurant, Miss Burgoyne
had writing materials brought her, and she wrote her letter while Jim
was in shy confabula