an ingenuous youth, dressed more like a tailor's dummy than anything else, especially about his feet, which are very small and very shiny; and Tommy Toshington, who has dropped in on the chance of hearing something which, cleverly manipulated and well told at the club, may gain him a dinner. In the immediate background sits Mrs. M'Diarmid, knitting. Lady Muriel has poured out the tea; the gentlemen have handed the ladies their cups, and are taking their own; and the usual blank dulness has fallen on the company. Nobody says a word for full three minutes, when the silence is broken by Tommy Toshington, who begins to find his visit unremunerative, as hitherto he has not gleaned one atom of gossip. So he asks Lady Muriel whether she has seen anything of Colonel Jefferson. "No, indeed," Lady Muriel replies; "Colonel Jefferson has not been to see us since our return." "Didn't know you were in town, perhaps," suggests the peace-loving Tommy. "Must know that, Toshington," says Lord Roderick Douglas, who has no great love for Charley Jefferson, associating that stern commander with various causes of heavy field-days and refusals of leave. "I don't see that," says Tommy, who has never been Lord Roderick's guest at mess or anywhere else, and who does not see a chance of hospitality in that quarter; consequently is by no means reticent,--"I don't see that; how was he to know it?" "Same way that everybody else did--through the _Post_." "Tommy can't read it," said Clement Penruddock; "they didn't teach spellin' ever so long ago, when Tommy was a boy." "They taught manners," growled Tommy, "at all events; but they seem to have given that up." "Charley Jefferson isn't in town," said "Bristles," cutting in quickly to stop the discussion; "he's down at Torquay. Had a letter from him yesterday, my lady; last man in the world, Charley, to be rude--specially to you or Miss Kilsyth." "I am sure of that, Mr. Brettles," said Lady Muriel; "I fancied Colonel Jefferson must be away, or we should have seen him." "People go away most strangelike," observed Mrs. M'Diarmid from the far distance. "The facilities of the road, the river, and the rail, as I've seen it somewhere expressed, is such, that one's here today, Lord bless you, and next week in the Sydney Isles or thereabouts." By "the Sydney Isles or thereabouts." Mrs. M'Diarmid's friends had by long experience ascertained that she meant Australia. "Scarcely so far as that in so short a time, Aunt Hannah," said Madeleine with a smile. "Well, my dear, far enough to fare worse, as the expression is. I don't hold with such wanderings, thinking home to be home, be it ever so homely." "You would not like to go far away yourself, would you, Mrs. M'Diarmid?" asked Lord Roderick. "Not I, my lord; Regent-street for me is quite very, and beyond that I have no inspiration." "You've never been able to get Mrs. M'Diarmid even so far as Kilsyth, have you, Lady Muriel?" said Clement.