debating with her maid the rival merits of blush roses and pink silk, or of white tarlatan and clematis.

It was, also, some time ere I could summon up enough resolution to knock at the door of Mrs Clyde’s residence, when, my decorative preparations accomplished, I at length succeeded in getting round to her house.

The expedition strangely reminded me of a visit I was once forced to pay to a dentist, owing to the misdeeds of one of my best molars; the dread of the impending interview almost inducing me to turn back on the threshold and put off my painful purpose for a while—even as had been my course of procedure when calling at Signor Odonto’s agonising establishment. On that occasion, I remember, I recoiled in fright from the dreaded ordeal, seeking refuge in “instant flight.”

I could not do so now, however. I had promised Min to speak to her mother as soon as possible; and, independently of that engagement, the interview would have to be gone through sooner or later, at all hazards. “An’ it were done quickly, it were well done;” so, at last, my hesitation passed away under the influence of this, really vital, consideration. I nerved myself up to the knocking point. I gave a loud rat, tat, tat! that thrilled through my very boots, causing a passing butcher’s boy, awed by its important sound, to inquire, with the cynical empressement of his race, whether I thought myself the “Emperoar of Rooshia.” I turned my back on him with contempt; but, his ribald remark made me feel all the more nervous.

“Mrs Clyde at home?” I asked of the handmaiden, who answered my summons.

Yes, Mrs Clyde was at home.

Would I walk in?

I would; and did.

So far, all was plain sailing:—now, came the tug of war.

Mrs Clyde was standing up, facing the door, as I entered the drawing-room into which the handmaiden had ushered me.

“Won’t you sit down, Mr Lorton?” she said, politely.

She never forgot her good breeding; and, I verily believe, if it had ever been her lot to officiate in Calcraft’s place, she would have asked the culprit, whom she was about to hasten on his way to “kingdom come,” whether he found the fatal noose too tight, or comfortable and easy, around his doomed neck! She would do this, too, 

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