second son of my noble parent.

I was rather happy that morning, as I sat in an easy chair by the
library window, perusing a work by my favourite author,--after a
glorious twenty-mile gallop along the hedgerows and across country. I
was rather happy, I say, as I pondered over the thought that something
in the way of a just retribution was at last about to be meted out to
my elder, haughty, arrogant and extremely aristocratic rake of a
brother, Harry.

My mind flashed back again to the source of my vagrant thoughts. Lady
Rosemary Granton! To lose the guiding hand of her mother in her
infancy; to spend her childhood in the luxurious lap of New York's
pampered three hundred; to live six years more among the ranchers, the
cowboys and, no doubt, the cattle thieves of Wyoming, in the care of an
old friend of her father, to wit, Colonel Sol Dorry; then to be
transferred for refining and general educational purposes for another
spell of six years to the strict discipline of a French Convent; to
flit from city to city, from country to country, for three years with
her father, in the stress of diplomatic service--what a life! what an
upbringing for the future Countess of Brammerton! Finally, by way of
culmination, to lose her father and to be introduced into London
society, with a fortune that made the roues of every capital in Europe
gasp and order a complete new wardrobe!

As I thought what the finish might be, I threw up my hands, for it was
a most interesting and puzzling speculation.

Lady Rosemary Granton! Who had not heard the stories of her conquests
and her daring? They were the talk of the clubs and the gossip of the
drawing-rooms. Masculine London was in ecstasies over them and voted
Lady Rosemary a trump. The ladies were scandalised, as only jealous
minded ladies can be at lavishly endowed and favoured members of their
own sex.

Personally, I preferred to sit on the fence. Being a lover of the open
air, of the agile body, the strong arm and the quick eye, I could not
but admire some of this extraordinary young lady's exploits. But,--the
woman who was conceded the face of an angel, the form of a Venus de
Milo; who was reported to have dressed as a jockey and ridden a horse
to victory in the Grand National Steeplechase; who, for a wager, had
flicked a coin from the fingers of a cavalry officer with a revolver at
twenty paces; lassooed a cigar from between the teeth of the Duke of
Kaslo and argued on the