to them in time," was the complacent answer.

They dismissed the hansom at the corner of Piccadilly, and walked up
Park Lane, so as to avoid waiting in the rank of carriages. Macleod
accompanied his companion meekly. All this scene around him--the
flashing lights of the broughams, the brilliant windows, the stepping
across the pavement of a strangely dressed dignitary from some foreign
land--seemed but some other part of that dream from which he had not
quite shaken himself free. His head was still full of the sorrows and
coquetries of that wild-spirited heroine. Whither had she gone by this
time--away into some strange valley of that unknown world?

He was better able than Mr. Ogilvie to push his way through the crowd of
footmen who stood in two lines across the pavement in front of
Beauregard House, watching for the first appearance of their master or
mistress; but he resignedly followed, and found himself in the avenue
leading clear up to the steps. They were not the only arrivals, late as
the hour was. Two young girls, sisters, clad in cream-white silk with a
gold fringe across their shoulders and sleeves, preceded them; and he
was greatly pleased by the manner in which these young ladies, on
meeting in the great hall an elderly lady who was presumably a person of
some distinction, dropped a pretty little old-fashioned courtesy as they
shook hands with her. He admired much less the more formal obeisance
which he noticed a second after. A royal personage was leaving; and as
this lady, who was dressed in mourning, and was leaning on the arm of a
gentleman whose coat was blazing with diamond stars, and whose breast
was barred across with a broad blue ribbon, came along the spacious
landing at the foot of the wide staircase, she graciously extended her
hand and said a few words to such of the ladies standing by as she knew.
That deep bending of the knee he considered to be less pretty than the
little courtesy performed by the young ladies in cream-white silk. He
intended to mention this matter to his cousin Janet.

Then, as soon as the Princess had left the lane, through which she had
passed closed up again, and the crowd became a confused mass of
murmuring groups. Still meekly following, Macleod plunged into this
throng, and presently found himself being introduced to Lady
Beauregard--an amiable little woman who had been a great beauty in her
time, and was pleasant enough to look at now. He passed on.

"Who is the