s rude to contradict a lady I will only say that I reserve my opinion.'

'Are you to stay long in England?' asked Lesbia.

She was leaning against the stone balustrade in a careless attitude, as
of one who was weary, her elbow on the stone slab, and her head thrown
hack against her arm. The white satin gown, moulded to her figure, had a
statuesque air, and she looked like a marble statue in the dim light,
every line of the graceful form expressive of repose.

'That will depend. I am not particularly fond of London. A very little
of your English Babylon satisfies me, in a general way; but there are
conditions which might make England enchanting. Where do you go at the
end of the season?'

'First to Goodwood, and then to Cowes. Mr. Smithson is so kind as to
place his yacht at Lady Kirkbank's disposal, and I am to be her guest on
board the Cayman, just as I am in Arlington Street.'

'The Cayman! That name is a reminiscence of Mr. Smithson's South
American travels.'

'No doubt! Was he long in South America?'

'Three or four years.'

'But not in Cuba all that time, I suppose?'

'He had business relations with Cuba all that time, and oscillated
between our island and the main. He was rather fortunate in his little
adventures with us--made almost as much money as General Tacon, of
blessed memory. But I dare say Smithson has told you all his adventures
in that part of the world.'

'No, he very rarely talks about his travels: and I am not particularly
interested in commercial speculations. There is always so much to think
of and talk about in the business of the moment. Are you fond of Cuba?'

'Not passionately. I always feel as if I were an exile there, and yet
one of my ancestors was with Columbus when be discovered the island, and
my race were among the earliest settlers. My family has given three
Captain-generals to Cuba: but I cannot forget that I belong to an older
world, and have forfeited that which ought to have been a brilliant
place in Europe for the luxurious obscurity of a colony.'

'But you must be attached to a place in which your family have lived for
so many generations?'

'I like the stars and the sea, the mountains and savannas, the tropical
vegetation, and the dreamy, half-oriental life; but at best it is a kind
of stagnation, and after a residence of a few months in the island of my
birth I generally spread my wings for the wider world of the old
continent or the new.'

'You must have travel