"Ah!" said Mr. Rodney, manifesting sudden animation, "did I hear you say Van Adam? Then you recognised my style? You read my little paragraph?"

"Your style? Your little what?"

"My little word in The World this week with reference to that sad American matter."

"Oh, then it was you who put it in?"

"I have a friend in New York, Lord Bernard Roche, who sends me news of that world with which the White Star Line and the ties of brotherhood connect us. He wrote to me full of poor Huskinson's—as he calls him—matrimonial misfortunes."

"He calls him Huskinson, too?"

"Too! That is his name. In America they have names like that."

"And Bream?"

Mr. Rodney's face expressed a cultivated surprise.

[Pg 43]

[Pg 43]

"You know about Bream? Oh, but of course, in my paragraph I——"

"And Boswell? Oh!"

"You know about Bos—but I never mentioned its name in my——"

"Her Grace the Duchess of Southborough and the Lady Pearl McAndrew!" announced James.

Mrs. Verulam, whose mind was now fastened upon the presence of Chloe in the house, and her imminent advent into the room, rose up distractedly as two ladies slowly advanced, one smiling, and one on the contrary. The former was the Duchess, the latter was her only child. Her Grace was tall, elderly, large and respectable-looking. Lady Pearl was a trifle shorter, a trifle less elderly, a trifle narrower, and a trifle—but only a trifle—less respectable-looking. The family likeness was marked, and the Southborough family was not one in which a family likeness was 

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