"Of course, Max, of course," assented Mr Carlyle heartily. "I--well, as far as I was concerned, I regarded the matter as settled." Carrados turned to his desk and the ghost of a smile might possibly have lurked about his face. He produced some stationery and indicated it to his visitor. "You don't mind giving me a line of introduction to your niece?" "Pleasure," murmured Carlyle, taking up a pen. "What shall I say?" Carrados took the inquiry in its most literal sense and for reply he dictated the following letter:-- "'MY DEAR ELSIE,'-- "If that is the way you usually address her," he parenthesized. "Quite so," acquiesced Mr Carlyle, writing. "'The bearer of this is Mr Carrados, of whom I have spoken to you.' "You have spoken of me to her, I trust, Louis?" he put in. "I believe that I have casually referred to you," admitted the writer. "I felt sure you would have done. It makes the rest easier. "'He is not in the least mad although he frequently does things which to the uninitiated appear more or less eccentric at the moment. I think that you would be quite safe in complying with any suggestion he may make. "'Your affectionate uncle, "'LOUIS CARLYLE.'" He accepted the envelope and put it away in a pocket-book that always seemed extraordinarily thin for the amount of papers it contained. "I may call there to-morrow," he added. Neither again referred to the subject during the evening, but when Parkinson came to the library a couple of hours after midnight to know whether he would be required again, he found his master rather deeply immersed in a book and a gap on the shelf where "The Flame beyond the Dome" had formerly stood. It is not impossible that Mr Carlyle supplemented his brief note of introduction with a more detailed communication that reached his niece by the ordinary postal service at an earlier hour than the other. At all events, when Mr Carrados presented himself at the toy villa on the following afternoon he found Elsie Bellmark suspiciously disposed to accept him and his rather gratuitous intervention among her suburban troubles as a matter of course. When the car drew up at the bright green wooden gate of Fountain Cottage another visitor, apparently a good-class working man, was standing on the path of the trim front garden, lingering over a reluctant departure. Carrados took sufficient time in alighting to allow the man to pass through the gate before he himself entered. The last exchange of sentences reached his ear. "I'm sure, marm, you won't find anyone to do the work at less." "I can quite believe that," replied a very fair young lady who stood nearer the house, "but, you see, we do all the gardening ourselves, thank you." Carrados made himself known and was taken into the daintily pretty drawing-room that opened on to the lawn behind the house. "I do not need to ask if you are Mrs Bellmark," he had declared.