would never treat a
man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare to him, nor would
he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in that divine poet
beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr. Blake's uncle hated
all members of the legal profession, and as for his grandfather--but you
have heard what a mania of dislike he had against that simple article of
diet, fish; now his friends were obliged to omit it from their bills of
fare whenever they expected him to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose
to have any pet antipathy--as for women for instance--he surely
had precedent enough in his own family to back him. However, it was
whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a former political colleague of
his who had been with him in Washington, that he was known at one time
to show considerable attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of
his who has since made such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and
straightway losing by death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble,
the Count De Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about,
Madame the Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all
appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.

Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, I
asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the
most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon something
in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with my
information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I would
have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth lying at
the bottom of this well.

CHAPTER V. A NEW YORK BELLE

Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate or
whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile. Even
the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no effect; and
frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the accounts of that
same Mrs. Daniels' strange and unaccountable behavior during these days
of suspense, which came to me through Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at
Mr. Blake's, whose acquaintance I had lately taken to cultivating,)
aroused once more my dormant energies and led me to ask myself if the
affair was quite as hopeless as it seemed.

"If she was a ghost," was her final expression on the subject, "she
could'nt go peramberlating this house more than she does. It seems as if
she could'nt keep st