and, while being the intimate and trusted companion of many of his friends' wives, sisters, and daughters, was the lover of none. And yet he was devoted to the sex, and spent a great deal of money! Yes, and was very frequently absent from his family. Amongst the property which the Colonel inherited from his wife were some slate-quarries and lead-mines in South Wales, which seemed to require a vast amount of personal supervision. If he looked after the rest of his estate with equal fidelity, he must have been a pattern landlord; for he would leave town in the height of the season, or give up any pleasant engagement, when he received one of these summonses. When Miss Orpington was a child, she used to tease her father about "dose 'orrid quarry-mines;" but it was noticed that after she had put away childish things, amongst which might be enumerated innocence, she never referred to the subject. Nobody ever did palpably refer to it, though there was a good deal of sniggering about it in the Colonel's clubs, and Bobus, known as Badger Bobus from his low sporting tastes, was asked out to dinner for a fortnight on the strength of his having said that he couldn't make out how old Orpington always went into South Wales by the Great Northern Railway. Miss Orpington languidly expresses her pleasure at seeing Daisy. "You are so fresh, Miss Stafford, and all that kind of thing. Of course I know Madame Clarisse's taste is excellent; but I confess I like a younger person's ideas." Daisy bows, and says nothing, but applies herself to showing her wares, which the young lady turns over and discourses upon. Colonel Orpington, standing by and caressing his grizzled moustache, says nothing also. Nothing aloud, at least; only someone standing very close might have seen him draw in his breath, and mutter behind his hand, "Jove! Clarisse was right." Miss Orpington is large in her notions of autumn costume, and Daisy shows her a vast number of "pretty things" which she would like to order, but is somewhat checked by the paternal presence, in itself a novelty in her negotiations with her milliner. But, deferring to the paternal presence, as to "Should she?" and "Did he think she might?" and receiving nothing but favourable replies, she gives her fancy scope, and makes such of the workwomen as were always retained think that the season had suddenly and capriciously recommenced. What had induced the Colonel to accompany his daughter? He never had done so before, and on this occasion he says nothing, never looks at the things exhibited, or the patterns after which they are to be made. What does he look at? Miss Orpington knows, perhaps, when, following the earnest gaze of his eyes, she makes a little _moue_, and slightly shrugs her shoulders, taking no further notice until they are in the street; then she says: "Do you think that girl pretty, papa?" The Colonel is in an abstracted state, and pauses for a minute before he replies, "What girl, Constance?"