d his grandchild; and when Vance took his arm
and drew him away, there was a puzzled, musing expression on Lionel's
face, and he remained silent till they had got through the press of
such stragglers as still loitered before the stage, and were in a quiet
corner of the sward. Stars and moon were then up,--a lovely summer
night.

"What on earth are you thinking of, Lionel? I have put to you three
questions, and you have not answered one."

"Vance," answered Lionel, slowly, "the oddest thing! I am so
disappointed in that little girl,--greedy and mercenary!"

"Precocious villain! how do you know that she is greedy and mercenary?"

"Listen: when that surly old manager came up to you, I said
something--civil, of course--to Waife, who answered in a hoarse, broken
voice, but in very good language. Well, when I told the manager that
you would pay for the sitting, the child caught hold of my arm hastily,
pulled me down to her own height, and whispered, 'How much will he
give?' Confused by a question so point-blank, I answered at random, 'I
don't know; ten shillings, perhaps.' You should have seen her face!"

"See her face! radiant,--I should think so. Too much by half!" exclaimed
Vance. "Ten shillings! Spendthrift!" "Too much! she looked as you might
look if one offered you ten shillings for your picture of 'Julius Caesar
considering whether he should cross the Rubicon.' But when the
manager had declared her to be his property, and appointed you to
call to-morrow,--implying that he was to be paid for allowing her to
sit,--her countenance became overcast, and she muttered sullenly, 'I'll
not sit; I'll not!' Then she turned to her grandfather, and something
very quick and close was whispered between the two; and she pulled me
by the sleeve, and said in my ear--oh, but so eagerly!--'I want three
pounds, sir,--three pounds!--if he would give three pounds; and come to
our lodgings,--Mr. Merle, Willow Lane. Three pounds,--three!' And with
those words hissing in my ear, and coming from that fairy mouth, which
ought to drop pearls and diamonds, I left her," added Lionel, as gravely
as if he were sixty, "and lost an illusion!"

"Three pounds!" cried Vance, raising his eyebrows to the highest arch
of astonishment, and lifting his nose in the air towards the majestic
moon,--"three pounds!--a fabulous sum! Who has three pounds to throw
away? Dukes, with a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not three
pounds to draw out of their poc