shift the conversation.

"Did you see him come? Where have you been all this time?"

"Outside. There's a grand trap at the door, and two horses. Brewster says he is awfully rich, and of course he's a screw. If there's one thing I hate it's a miser."

"Oh, he is too young to be a miser," say I, in the innocence of my heart. "Papa says he cannot be more than eight-and-twenty. Is he dark or fair, Billy?"

"I didn't see him, but I'm sure he's dark and squat, and probably he squints," says Billy, viciously. "Anyone that could turn poor old Mother Haggard out of her house in the frost and snow must have a squint."

"But he was in Italy then: perhaps he didn't know anything about it," I put in, as one giving the benefit of a bare doubt.

"Oh, didn't he?" says Billy, with withering contempt. "He didn't send his orders, I suppose? Oh, no!" 

Once fairly started in his Billingsgate strain, it is impossible to say where my brother will choose to draw a line, but fortunately for Mr. Carrington's character, Martha, our parlor servant, makes her appearance at this moment and comes up to us with an all-important expression upon her jovial face.

"Miss Phyllis, your ma wants you in the drawing-room at once," she says. "The strange gentleman is there, and---"

"Wants me?" I ask, in astonishment, not being usually regarded as a drawing-room ornament. "Martha, is my hair tidy?"

"'Tis lovely!" returns Martha. And, thus encouraged, I give my dress one or two hasty pulls and follow in Dora's footsteps.

A quarter of an hour later I rush back to Billy, and discover him standing, with bent head and shoulders, in a tiny closet that opens off the hall, and is only divided from the drawing-room by the very frailest of partitions. His attitude is crumpled, but his face betrays the liveliest interest as he listens assiduously to all that is going on inside.

"Well, what is he like?" he asks in a stage whisper, straightening himself slightly as he sees me, and pointing in the direction of the closet.

"Very nice," I answer with decision, "and not dark at all--quite fair. I asked him about the wood when I got the chance, and he said we might go there whenever we chose, and 

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