interrupt your writing, Miss Butterfield,” said Loring, sitting down.

“Oh no, Mr. Chatterton,” Caroline replied. “As a matter of fact I was rather stuck when you came in.”

“Yes, Loring,” I interposed, “Carrie was rather stuck when you came in. Perhaps we shall be able to help her, eh, Bassishaw?”

“Delighted,” replied Bassishaw; “but I’m afraid, do you know, that I haven’t much of a head on me for that sort of thing, Miss Butterfield.”

“Rollo——” began Carrie.

“Oh, he’ll do, Carrie,” I replied. “Caroline wants to know, Bassishaw, what a young man, good, clever, and—let me see—was he noble, Carrie? Yes, I believe he was noble, and—a brilliant talker”—(I had him there)—“a brilliant talker, would say after dinner about the girl he thought he loved.”

Carrie was helpless. I had not given her away, and she did not dare to protest for fear of doing so herself. She had a secret—I also had a secret. I would keep the case strictly hypothetical.

“Well, Miss Butterfield,” began the hero who was thirsting to do some brave deed, “I’m hanged, do you know, if I know what he’d say. He’d talk a lot of piffle, wouldn’t he—oh, but he’s a brilliant sort of chap. He’d—oh, hang it, Loring, what would he say? I don’t know.”

I chuckled softly. I didn’t want to hear Loring; I wanted to hear the brilliant talker. It was for Carrie’s benefit.

“But if he really loved her,” I said, “and his eloquence came out in a torrent?”

“Oh, I see. Well, I expect he’d say she was a confounded nice girl—or something—pretty and all that, you know—and he’d row any chap who said she wasn’t; don’t you think, eh? But why the deuce should he say anything?”

Bassishaw was coming out of it with more credit than I thought. I laughed, and even Carrie had to laugh too.

“I think,” said Chatterton, “that’s about as much as he could say, unless he were an ass. I can’t imagine his saying much if you were there, Rollo.”

“No,” said Bassishaw. “You are a mischievous sort of Johnny, you know, Butterfield. You’re deuced hard on young chaps; you guy them awfully, you know. I expect you’ve forgotten all that.”

Thus unconsciously, was Bassishaw revenged. I was 

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