Weeks passed, with no message from the Vidame. He did not answer a letter which Mrs. Malory allowed Matilda to write. The mother never showed to the girl the note which he had left with her maid. The absence and the silence of the lover were enough. Matilda never knew that among the four packed in the brougham on that night of rain, one had been eloping with a married lady--who returned to supper. The papers were 'requested to state that the marriage announced between the Vidame de la Lain and Miss Malory will not take place.' Why it did not take place was known only to Mrs. Malory, Mrs. Brown-Smith, and Merton. Matilda thought that her lover had been kidnapped and arrested, by the Secret Police of France, for his part in a scheme to restore the Royal House, the White Flag, the Lilies, the children of St. Louis. At Mrs. Brown-Smith's place in Perthshire, in the following autumn, Matilda met Sir Aylmer Jardine. Then she knew that what she had taken for love (in the previous year) had been, 'Not love, but love's first flush in youth.' They always do make that discovery, bless them! Lady Jardine is now wrapped up in her baby boy. The mother of the cook recovered her health. IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST 'Mr. Frederick Warren'--so Merton read the card presented to him on a salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy. 'Show the gentleman in.' Mr. Warren entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face, red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly vaccinated. Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton hospitably offered an effervescent draught. 'Without the whisky, if you please, sir,' said Mr. Warren, in a provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of alcoholic refreshment in all its forms. 'Two glasses of Apollinaris water,' said Merton to the office-boy; and the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his client's arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus: 'Sir, I am a man of principle!' Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required. 'Sir, have you been vaccinated?' asked the client earnestly. 'Really,' said Merton, 'I do not quite understand your interest in a matter so purely personal.'