had found him on an apparently intimate footing. Perhaps it was this very intimacy which formed the basis for my dislike, for—there is no need to mince matters—at this time I was jealous, horribly and unreasonably jealous, of every male person who entered the Colonel's house. And here, perhaps, it will be better for me to explain how it happened that I came to be living in a cottage on the outskirts of St. Albans in preference to my own house in Norfolk.

   The change in my residence had been entirely due to a tennis party at Cromer. There I met Evie Maitland. She was—— No, every one can fill in the blank from their own experience for themselves; and if they cannot, I pity them.

   Fortunately I had an aunt present. She was the most amiable of aunts, and quite devoted towards her most dutiful nephew. With her assistance, I managed not

   only to improve my acquaintance with Miss Maitland, but also to effect an introduction to her father. I had only known them a week, however, before the Colonel took his daughter back to St. Albans. I allowed an interval of a fortnight to elapse, and then I followed. Of course I had to be prepared with some excuse, and here luck favoured me. Looking through the directory I discovered that Winter, whom I knew slightly as having been up at Camford about the same time as myself, was also a resident in the delightful St. Alban's suburb of St. Stephens where the Maitlands resided. I sought out Winter. I confided my story to him. The upshot of it all was that I took a cottage close to his house, and not far from the Colonel's, ostensibly that under Winter's tuition I might develop into a first-class motorist.

   Somehow I found that I made a great deal more progress with my motoring than with my love-making. Surely a more bewitching, tantalizing, provoking little beauty than Evie Maitland never tore a man's heart to fragments. If she was kind to me one day, she would be still kinder to Mannering the next. But that is neither here nor there. Anyhow, I heartily wished him out of the way, for there was no doubt whatever that Randolph Mannering was a much more attractive person than my insignificant self. His mere advantage in age counted for something; but I could have forgiven him that, had he not made use of the years to see so much and do so much, that he could not help appearing in the light of a hero to a girl who was just at the worshipping age.

   And he knew so well how to get the fullest value out of his experiences. He never paraded them, I must admit that much in his favour. 

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