Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had not found among the loungers in the town the individual whom her bright black eyes were seeking, when George Dallas and Harriet Routh had marked her from the window. She had driven rapidly away past the gardens and the Schloss, and when fully two miles outside the town she overtook a gentleman sauntering leisurely along, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his moody eyes fixed upon the ground. The carriage was close upon him before he looked round, though the sound made by the wheels and the trotting horses had been distinct in the clear air, as they came along the empty road. Then he turned and greeted the lady with effusion. In a moment he had taken his place beside her, and was whirled away into the green and golden distance of the forest, under the brow-crest of Taunus. "How very odd that you should know him," said the gorgeous lady of the pony-carriage to the gentleman seated beside her, as she walked her ponies along a shady road, where the slim trees stood on guard on either side, and the fallen leaves rustled under the wheels. "Not so very odd. He is a near relative of one of my most intimate friends." "Ah, his nephew, I suppose you mean, a tall young man with good eyes, and a remarkably rich expression of countenance." "I recognize the description certainly, and it is not flattering. That is the individual; his name is Dallas." "A booby, I'm convinced. How he can be an intimate friend of yours I cannot understand." She said this rather sulkily, which, by adding to its character of sincerity, made the indirect flattery in which she was a proficient all the more delicious. Her companion's eyes flashed with pleasure as he turned them upon her with a look which she did not raise her eyes to receive, but which dyed her cheek a deeper rose-tint than before. Then she went on: "He is come here with Mr. Felton to meet his cousin, I suppose. Arthur Felton will not like that, I fancy. He regarded this fine family reunion as a very decided nuisance, I can assure you." "I don't quite understand you," her companion said. "Mr. Felton's son is not here, that I know of; he certainly had not arrived yesterday, for Dallas was at my lodgings, and would have been sure to mention it." "No," replied the lady, with a slow provoking smile, which lighted her eyes up with mischief, and showed more of her faultless teeth than always glistened on the world. "I know he is not here, but he is coming. I gave him a rendezvous here for this very week, in Paris, last March." The gentleman looked at her in such extreme surprise that it quite amused her. She did not only smile now, she laughed.