"He is a charming fellow, the Duke-charming-charming!" went on Sir Morton, unconscious of the complex workings of thought in his elderly daughter's acidulated brain! "And his great 'chum,' Lord Mawdenham, has also been staying with us--but they left Badsworth yesterday, I'm sorry to say. They travelled up to London with Lady Elizabeth Messing, who paid us a visit of two or three days--" "Lady Elizabeth Messing!" echoed Maryllia, with a sudden ripple of laughter--"Dear me! Did you have her staying with you? How very nice of you! She is such a terror!" Mr. Marius Longford stroked one of his pussy-cat whiskers thoughtfully, and put in his word. "Lady Elizabeth spoke of you, Miss Vancourt, several times," he said. "In fact"--and he smiled--"she had a good deal to say! She remembers meeting you in Paris, and--if I mistake not--also at Homburg on one occasion. She was surprised to hear you were coming to live in this dull country place--she said it would never suit you at all--you were altogether too brilliant--er--" he bowed--" and er- -charming!" This complimentary phrase was spoken with the air of a beneficent paterfamilias giving a child a bon-bon. Maryllia's glance swept over him carelessly. "Much obliged to her, I'm sure!" she said--"I can quite imagine the anxiety she felt concerning me! So good of her! Is she a great friend of yours?" Mr. Longford looked slightly disconcerted. "Well, no," he replied--"I have only during these last few days-- through Sir Morton--had the pleasure of her acquaintance--" "Mr. Longford is not a 'society' man!" said Sir Morton, with a chuckle--"He lives on the heights of Parnassus--and looks down with scorn on the browsing sheep in the valleys below! He is a great author!" "Indeed!" and Maryllia raised her delicately arched eyebrows with a faint movement of polite surprise--"But all authors are great nowadays, aren't they? There are no little ones left." "Oh, yes, indeed, and alas, there are!" exclaimed Julian Adderley, flourishing his emptied tea-cup in the air before setting it back in its saucer and depositing the whole on a table before him; "I am one of them, Miss Vancourt! Pray be merciful to me!" The absurd attitude of appeal he assumed moved Maryllia to a laugh. "Well, when you look like that I guess I will!" she said playfully, not without a sense of liking for the quaint human creature who so willingly made himself ridiculous without being conscious of it-- "What is your line in the small way?"