MAUD. Nature said, 'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown: This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own.' When Vernon was appointed Under-Secretary to the Salt Board, he no doubt imagined that it was in connection with that august body that he would be known to fame and (as Strutt would grandiloquently have put it) leave his mark on his epoch. He was destined, however, as the reader of these pages will presently perceive, to become remarkable on the less unusual ground of relationship to an extremely pretty girl. His cousin Maud, of whom years before, in a rash moment of benevolence, he had consented to become guardian and trustee, had been suddenly thrown upon his hands. She was no longer a remote anxiety which could be disposed of by cheques, letters to governesses, and instructions to solicitors, but an immediate, living reality, with a highly effective pair of eyes, good looks--as to which women might cavil, but every man would be a firm believer--the manner of an eager child, and a joyousness which Vernon was obliged to admit was at once deliciously infectious to the world at large, and a very agreeable alternative to the state of mind produced by Indian summers, salt statistics, letters polished by Whisp or commonplaces enunciated by Fotheringham. With the timidity of indolence he shuddered to think of the social entanglements and disturbances which so new an element in his household was calculated to produce.