“He was very clever,” she thought, with a tender remembrance of the Major’s best manœuvres; “but then one so often saw through him. He always started with wrong premises, and fancied everyone but himself was a fool: as if there could be any merit in deceiving only stupid people.” Miss Desmond was always wise enough to remember that the larger art of talking well comprehends the smaller art of listening gracefully. She was not one of those obnoxious people who talk for the sake of talking; and who, after rattling on without a full-stop for half an hour at a stretch, will stare vacantly at you while you recite to them some interesting adventure, evidently thinking of what they mean to say next, and waiting for the chance of cutting in. Julia Desmond talked with a purpose,--not because she wanted to talk, but because she wished to please: and now she listened to Francis Tredethlyn with an unfailing show of sympathy and interest, that beguiled him on to tell her more and more. She wound and insinuated herself into his confidence as a beautiful serpentine creature winds itself into the heart of an apparently impenetrable forest; and before the evening was finished Mr. Tredethlyn found himself almost as intimate with this splendid southern Irishwoman as if she had been his sister. She had set him completely at his ease; so that he no longer felt out of place in Mr. Hillary’s gorgeous rooms: and when the merchant, coming into the drawing-room at eleven o’clock, very pale and worn-looking, asked him to dine at the Cedars on the following Sunday, Francis unhesitatingly accepted the invitation. He stole just one glance at Maude as he did so; but she was in the act of exhibiting one of the newest accomplishments of a mouse-coloured Skye terrier for the edification of the two young loungers, and she was quite unconscious of that shy look from Mr. Tredethlyn’s eyes. He went to her presently to wish her good-night, and the spell of her gracious presence dazed and bewildered him, to the cost of the mouse-coloured terrier, upon whose silky paws he trampled in his embarrassment; and then, essaying to shake hands in a gentlemanly manner, he forgot what a stalwart giant he was, and squeezed the little hand that rested so lightly in his, until Maude’s fingers were wounded by the hoops, and clusters, and hearts, and crescents of diamonds and opals which twinkled and flashed upon them;--for Miss Hillary had seen the Marchioness of Londonderry’s famous rings, and never wore any vulgar mixture of many-coloured jewels upon her pretty white hands. Francis lingered a little after saying good-night, helpless under the spell of the enchantress, and then made his way somehow or other out of the room. Ah! surely uncle Oliver’s money was not such sordid dross, after all, when it was the golden key which admitted him to that paradise on the banks of the Thames. ------------------------------------------------------------------------