for some time.

   'But alone, Philippa?'

   (She was but eight-and-thirty).

   'Not so much alone as you suppose,' she replied archly.

   This should have warned me, but again I passionately urged my plea. I offered most attractive inducements. A line to herself in the bills! Everything found!

   'Basil,' she observed, blushing in her usual partial manner, 'you are a day after the fair.'

   'But there are plenty of fairs,' I cried, 'all of which we attend regularly. What can you mean? Has another——'

   'He hev,' said Philippa, demurely but decidedly.

   'You are engaged?' She raised her lovely hand, and was showing me a gold wedding circlet, when the door opened, and a strikingly handsome man of some forty summers entered.

   There was something written in his face (a dark contusion, in fact, under the left eye) which told me that he could not be a pure and high-souled Christian gentleman.

   'Basil South, M.D.' said Philippa, introducing us. 'Mr. Baby Farmer' (obviously a name of endearment), and again a rosy blush crept round her neck in the usual partial manner, which made one of her most peculiar charms.

   I bowed mechanically, and, amid a few dishevelled remarks on the weather, left the house the most disappointed showman in England.

   'Cur, sneak, coward, villain!' I hissed when I felt sure I was well out of hearing. 'Farewell, farewell, Philippa!'

   To drown remembrance and regret, I remained in town, striving in a course of what moralists call 'gaiety' to forget what I had lost.

   How many try the same prescription, and seem rather to like it! I often met my fellow-patients.

   One day, on the steps of the Aquarium, I saw the man whom I suspected of not being Philippa's husband.

   'Who is that cove?' I asked.

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