“Really I think I had better not tell you; you ladies are apt to be a little jealous sometimes without reasonable cause. ‘Where ignorance is bliss,’ you know----” He paused with a tantalising smile, then seeing from Alice’s manner that she was not in a humour to be trifled with, he continued--“Well, I see you mean to hear it, so I may as well tell you at once--not that there is anything very wonderful to tell. You must know that, some three or four years ago, Miss Crofton, being then younger and handsomer than she is now (she is not _my_ style, but many people consider her vastly attractive still), was living as governess with a family of the name of Muir, and in that capacity accompanied them to Florence. John Muir, the eldest son, was an old college friend of Mr. Coverdale’s, and meeting by chance in Switzerland, they joined forces, and spent two or three months at Florence, making occasional excursions into the adjoining country. Everything progressed with cheerfulness and serenity in this Italian Arcadia, until one fine day the eldest Miss Muir eloped with an individual who represented himself as a Neapolitan count, and proved to be merely either valet or courier to the same. This broke up the party, and Mr. Coverdale took his leave; but scarcely had he been gone twelve hours, when, lo and behold, Miss Crofton, who had been much blamed for not having looked after the eloped-with young lady more closely (I suppose she was looking after somebody else), suddenly disappeared. After hunting about Florence in vain, Pater Familias Muir somehow obtained a clue to the lady’s whereabouts, following which he reached a village some thirty miles distant, where he discovered Miss Crofton, and, if my informant did not err, Mr. Coverdale also. Whether it had been his intention to place her in that position now so much more worthily filled, or whether he proposed an arrangement of a less permanent character, history telleth not; suffice it to add, as the books say, that the eloquent representations of Pater Muir induced the lady to return with him to Florence, whence he instantly dispatched her to England under some safe escort, while Mr. Coverdale pursued his onward course to Turkey and the East.” He paused, but as Alice made no reply, merely concealing her countenance behind a voluminous fan, somewhat smaller than a peacock’s expanded tail, he continued--“Such was the _historiette_ related to me; but scandal-mongers are so given to exaggerate, that I dare say it is not half true, so do not _worry_ yourself about it, my dear Mrs. Coverdale.” This consolatory codicil was added because his lordship heard, or fancied he heard, a sound analogous to a repressed sob proceed from behind the fan, and this pseudo-profligate young nobleman carried a very tender heart under his embroidered waistcoat.