"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