"There is no other Count di Penelli." "Pardon me!" I said, "but a young man calling himself by that name was for two months a fellow boarder of mine." "Describe him, if you please," said the Count, eagerly. I did so. "Ah," said the Count, when I concluded, "it is doubtless my valet, who has been masquerading under my title. He ran away from me at the West, nearly three months since, carrying with him three hundred dollars. I set detectives upon his track, but they could find no clue. Is the fellow still at your boarding-house?" "No, Count, he eloped a week since with a widow, another of our boarders. I believe they are in Philadelphia." "Then he has deceived the poor woman. Has she got money?" "A little. I don't think she has much." "That is what he married her for. Doubtless he supposed her wealthy. He had probably spent all the money he took from me." "I hope, Count, for the sake of his wife, you will not have him arrested." Count di Penelli shrugged his shoulders. "I will let him go at your request, poor devil," he said. "Why did she marry him?" "For his title." "Then the heart is not concerned?" "I never discovered that Mrs. Wyman had a heart." "Probably both will be heartily sick of the marriage, perhaps are so already." "Thank you for your information, Count." "And I thank you for yours. Good-morning!" I said nothing at the boarding-house of the discovery I had made. Why should I? So far as the rest of the boarders knew Mrs. Wyman was a veritable Countess. CHAPTER XXI. AFTER THREE MONTHS. The curtain falls and rises again after an interval of three months. There have been some changes in our boarding-house. Prof. Poppendorf still occupies his accustomed place, and so does Miss Blagden. The young reporter still sits at my left, and entertains me with interesting gossip and information about public affairs and public men with whom he has come in contact. But the young woman from Macy's has left us. She has returned to her country home and is now the wife of her rustic admirer, Stephen Higgins. I think she has done wisely. Life in the great stores is a species of slavery, and she could save nothing from her salary. When Prof. Poppendorf heard of her marriage, he looked depressed, but I noticed that his appetite was not affected. A true Teuton seldom allows anything to interfere with that. Mrs. Gray has received two or three notes from the Countess di Penelli. They treated of business matters solely. Whether she has discovered that her husband's title is spurious I cannot tell. I hear, however, from a drummer who is with us at intervals, that she is keeping a boarding-house on Spring Garden street, and that her title has been the magnet that has drawn to her house many persons who are glad in this way to obtain a titled acquaintance.