ure
gallery at Armine. It is the only time I ever saw him.'

'Oh!' said Miss Grandison again, 'Armine is a beautiful place, is it
not?'

'Most interesting.'

'You know the pleasaunce.'

'Yes.'

'I did not see you when I was at Armine.'

'No; we had just gone to Italy.'

'How beautiful you look to-day, Henrietta!' said Miss Grandison. 'Who
could believe that you ever were so ill!'

'I am grateful that I have recovered,' said Henrietta. 'And yet I never
thought that I should return to England.'

'You must have been so very ill in Italy, about the same time as poor
Ferdinand was at Armine. Only think, how odd you should both have been
so ill about the same time, and now that we should all be so intimate!'

Miss Temple looked perplexed and annoyed. 'Is it so odd?' she at length
said in a low tone.

'Henrietta Temple,' said Miss Grandison, with great earnestness, 'I have
discovered a secret; you are the lady with whom my cousin is in love.'

CHAPTER XIII.

_In Which Ferdinand Has the Honour of Dining with Mr. Bond
Sharpe_.

WHEN Ferdinand arrived at Mr. Bond Sharpe's he was welcomed by his host
in a magnificent suite of saloons, and introduced to two of the guests
who had previously arrived. The first was a stout man, past middle
age, whose epicurean countenance twinkled with humour. This was Lord
Castlefyshe, an Irish peer of great celebrity in the world of luxury and
play, keen at a bet, still keener at a dinner. Nobody exactly knew
who the other gentleman, Mr. Bland-ford, really was, but he had the
reputation of being enormously rich, and was proportionately respected.
He had been about town for the last twenty years, and did not look a day
older than at his first appearance. He never spoke of his family, was
unmarried, and apparently had no relations; but he had contrived to
identify himself with the first men in London, was a member of every
club of great repute, and of late years had even become a sort of
authority; which was strange, for he had no pretension, was very quiet,
and but humbly ambitious; seeking, indeed, no happier success than
to merge in the brilliant crowd, an accepted atom of the influential
aggregate. As he was not remarkable for his talents or his person,
and as his establishment, though well appointed, offered no singular
splendour, it was rather strange that a gentleman who had apparently
dropped from the clouds, or crept out of a kennel, should have succeeded
i