story, showing them our heroes and heroines in _déshabille_, and, through the medium of that window which Vulcan wished had been fixed in the human breast--and which really is there, for the novelist's inspection--making them acquainted with the inmost thoughts and feelings of the puppets moving before them. When Barbara went to her room that night and surrendered herself to Parker and the hair-brushes, that pattern of ladies'-maids thought that she had never seen her mistress so preoccupied since Karl von Knitzler, an _attaché_ of the Austrian Embassy,--who ran for a whole season in the ruck of the Lexden's admirers, and at last thought he had strength for the first flight,--had received his _coup de grâce_. In her wonderment Parker gave two or three hardish tugs at the hair which she was manipulating, but received no reproof; for the inside of that little head was so busy as to render it almost insensible to the outside friction. Barbara was thinking of Mr. Churchill--as yet she had not even thought of him by his Christian name, scarcely perhaps knew it--and of the strange interest which he seemed to have aroused in her. The tones of his voice yet seemed ringing in her ears; she remembered his warm, earnest manner when speaking from himself, and the light way in which he fell into her tone of jesting badinage. Then, with something like a jar, she recollected his suppressed sneer at the difference in their "class," and her foot tapped angrily on the floor as the recollection rose in her mind. Mingled strangely with these were reminiscences of his comely head, white shapely hands, strong figure, and well-made boots; of the way in which he sat and walked; of--and then, with a start which nearly hurled one of the brushes out of Parker's hand, she gathered herself together as she felt the whole truth rush upon her, and knew that she was thinking too much of the man and determined that she would so think no more. Who was he, living away in some obscure region in London among a set of people whom no one knew, leading a life which would not be tolerated by any of her friends, to engross _her_ thoughts? Between them rolled a gulf, wide and impassable, on the brink of which they might indeed stand for a few minutes interchanging casual nothings in the course of life's journey, but which rendered closer contact impossible. And yet--but Barbara determined there should be no "and yet;" and with this determination full upon her, she dismissed Parker and fell asleep.