unhealthy cheeks and vacuous expression of Mr. Puttock of Philadelphia. At the same time, a glance at Lady Branksome’s face impressed one with the idea that the Lady Enid would most probably be made to do what she was told. I have nearly always found house parties somewhat dull, unless there happened to be present a personality of new and surprising interest, and personalities do not frequent country-houses. But for the work I was engaged on I might have found the Saturday till Monday at Hammerton as dull as anything of the kind. It was, however, of absorbing interest to me to be in the house with two people whom I had decided on removing. The position pleased me. This absolutely modern company in a medieval castle, and with a medieval criminal in their midst, was truly interesting. Lady Branksome was evidently doubtful about me, but noting the Semitic cast of my features, and hearing that I was on the Stock Exchange, concluded that there could only be one reason for my being in such company, and that must be enormous wealth. Having several other daughters just ready to burst from the schoolroom into the ranks of the marriageable, she was tentatively affable. She was the sort of woman I always found it very easy to get on with; of the world, cynical and good-natured, very strong-minded, and willing to live and let live. She was at the same time most intolerant of people making fools of themselves, and had no intention of allowing those who were dependent on her to do so if she could help it. Providing she was assured that I had no intentions, she would be perfectly friendly, even when she discovered that I was comparatively poor. Indeed, I gathered in the course of a conversation with her, that she had quite a weakness for adventurous young men. Probably it was because she understood them so well that she was such an expert in keeping them at a distance. During dinner, however, and pending inquiries which would no doubt be conducted when the ladies were alone, she treated me as a person rich enough to be conciliated. A very different woman was Lady Briardale. However rich a man might be, he was nothing to her unless he could show a pedigree. She evidently thought very little of Mr. Puttock, and less of Mr. Rank, who looked a Jew. She probably regarded it as a slight that she should have been asked to meet two such absolute nobodies. She had never heard of anybody called Puttock, or Rank. They were not names at all. They were merely ciphers by which the lower classes were differentiated one from the other. She would probably have thought it more convenient if the lower classes had been known by numbers like cabs and convicts; and, after all, they were not so interesting as convicts, and not so useful as cabs in her eyes. She was evidently somewhat annoyed that I should talk so well, a fact she might have forgiven if others had not paid me the compliment of listening. Indeed, she became quite civil to