The brave girl thought of

    everything

   . The child of white parents, I should have in vain pretended to be Philippa's full brother. They would not have believed me had I sworn it.

   'Don't you think,' Philippa continued, as a sudden thought occurred to her, 'that as it is almost midnight and snowing heavily it would be more proper for me to return to Mrs. Thompson's?'

   There was no contesting this.

   We walked together to the house of that lady, and at my suggestion Philippa sought her couch. I sat down and awaited the advent of Mrs. Thompson. She soon appeared.

   A woman of about five-and-thirty, with an aquiline face, and a long, dark, silky beard sweeping down to her waist. Whatever this woman's charms might have been for me when I was still in the profession, she could now boast of very few. Doubtless she had been in Sir Runan's show, and was one of his victims.

   I apologised for the lateness of my call, and entered at once on business.

   Mrs. Thompson remarked that 'my sister's health was not as it should be,'—not all she could wish.

   'I do not wish to alarm you; no doubt you, her brother, are

    used

   to it; but, for a girl as mad as a hatter—well, I'll trouble you!'

   'I myself can write M.D. after my name,' I replied,' and you are related, I think, to Sir Runan Errand?'

   'We are connections,' she said, not taking the point of my sarcasm. 'His conduct rarely astonishes me. When I found, however, that this lady, your sister, was his wife, I own, for once, I

    was

   surprised.'

   Feeling that this woman had the better of it, with her calm, polished, highbred sarcasms, I walked back to the 'pike, full of hopes of a sweet revenge.

   As, however, I had never spoken to a baronet before, I could not but fear that his lofty air of superior rank might daunt me when we met 

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