Then Van Zandt said, questioningly: "Perhaps you have relatives or friends with whom you could place her? I am not rich, but I could spare enough to educate this wronged child." "I have not a relative in the world--not a friend I could trust; nothing but oceans of money, so you may keep yours. I'll spend some of mine in turning this little savage into a Christian." "You will take her to school, then, right away?" Van Zandt went on, in his quiet, pertinacious way. "Yes; and, by Jove, when she comes out, finished, I'll marry her, Van Zandt! I will, upon my word!" "If she will have you," laconically. "_Peste_! what a fellow you are, to throw cold water upon one. Perhaps you have designs upon her yourself?" "Not in the face of your munificent intentions," carelessly. "Very well; I shall consider her won, then, since you are too generous to enter the lists against me. What a magnificent beauty she will make when she has learned her three R's!" laughingly. "But, come; shall we not go at once to deliver our little friend from Castle Dangerous?" They rose. "I am glad I ran against you, Carmontelle. You have straightened out the snarl that tangled my mind. Now for our little stratagem. You will bring the carriage to the end of the square, while I go back to the garden and steal the bird away." "Excellent!" said Carmontelle. "Oh, how they will rage when they find the bird has flown! To-morrow the club shall settle with Remond; for madame, she shall be ostracised. We shall desert her in a body. Who would have believed she would be so base?" Van Zandt made no comment. He only said, as if struck by a sudden thought: "The poor child will have no clothes fit to wear away. Can you find time, while getting a carriage, to buy a gray dress, a long ulster, and a hat and veil?" "Of course. What a fellow you are to think of things! I should not have thought of such a thing; yet what school would have received her in that white slip--picturesque, but not much better than a ballet-dancer's skirts!" exclaimed the lively Southerner. "You are a trump, Van Zandt. Can you think of anything else as sensible?" "Some fruit and bonbons to soothe her at school--that is all," lightly, as they parted, one to return to Mme. Lorraine's, the other to perfect the arrangements for checkmating Remond's nefarious design. Carmontelle was full of enthusiasm over the romantic idea that had occurred so suddenly to his mind. A smile curled his lips, as he walked away, thinking of dark-eyed Little Nobody, and running over in his mind a score of feminine cognomens, with one of which he meant to endow the nameless girl. "Constance, Marie, Helene, Angela, Therese, Maude, Norine, Eugenie, etc.," ran his thoughts; but Eliot Van Zandt's took a graver turn as he went back to the starlit garden and the girl who believed him her Heaven-sent deliverer from peril and danger.