"Can I do anything for you, and why are you here?"

   Little told his story. Hardin asked to see the rope. Then he examined it carefully.

   "Ah, this was cut, not broken!"

   "With a knife?" asked Little.

   "No. Observe both sides are equally indented. It was done with a SCISSORS!"

   "Just Heaven!" gasped Little. "Therese!"

   Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a dog-fancier. "Buy a nice poodle, sir?"

   Something in the animal attracted his attention. "Fido!" he gasped.

   The dog yelped.

   Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper rustled to the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It ran:—

   "TO THE HON. AUGUSTUS RABY—I cannot marry you. If I marry any one" (sly puss) "it will be the man who has twice saved my life,—Professor Little.

   "CAROLINE COVENTRY."

   And she did.

   "I remember him a little boy," said the Duchess. "His mother was a dear friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids."

   "And you have never seen him since, mamma?" asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.

   "Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys."

   This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters. One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than L1,000,000; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a 

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