idence, and
glanced at the Egyptian article to confirm his impression of the
contents. They were still there. He believed all his actions were sane
and well balanced, but this was credulity. One stretches a point
sometimes, to believe oneself reasonable.

It was a model September afternoon--and what can one say more of
weather?--when at half-past three precisely Mr. Pellew's hansom overshot
the door of 102, Cavendish Square, and firmly but amiably insisted on
turning round to deposit its fare according to the exact terms of its
contract. Its proprietor said what he could in extenuation of its
maladroitness. They shouldn't build these here houses at the corners of
streets; it was misguiding to the most penetrating intellect. He
addressed his fare as Captain, asking him to make it another sixpence.
He had been put to a lot of expense last month, along of the strike, and
looked to the public to make it up to him. For the cabbies had struck,
some weeks since, against sixpence a mile instead of eightpence. Mr.
Pellew's heart was touched, and he conceded the other sixpence.

There at the door was Miss Grahame's open landaulet, and there were she
and Gwen in it, just starting to see the former's little boy. That was
how Dave was spoken of, at the risk of creating a scandal. They
immediately lent themselves to a gratuitous farce, having for its
object the liberation of Mr. Pellew and Miss Dickenson from external
influence.

"Constance _was_ back, wasn't she?" Thus Miss Grahame; and Gwen had the
effrontery to say she was almost certain, but couldn't be quite sure. If
she wasn't there, she would have to go without that pulverised Pharaoh,
as Sir Somebody Something's just yearnings for his _Quarterly_ were not
to be made light of. "Don't you let Maggie take the book up to her,
Percy. You go up in the sitting-room--you know, where we were playing
last night?--and if she doesn't turn up in five minutes don't you wait
for her!" Then the two ladies talked telegraphically, to the exclusion
of Mr. Pellew, to the effect that Aunt Constance had only gone to buy a
pair of gloves in Oxford Street, and was pledged to an early return. The
curtain fell on the farce, and a very brief interview with Mary at the
door ended in Mr. Pellew being shown upstairs, without reservation. So
he and Aunt Constance had the house to themselves.

To do them justice, the attention shown to the covering fiction of the
book-loan was of the very smallest. It c