She was alone when the young man was shown in. "You want to see me?" she said, as soon as the door was shut. "You come to fetch something, do you not?" "The captain told me—" he began, then stopped and stared mutely at her. "Well, what did the captain tell you?" she demanded impatiently. "He told me I should see the most beautiful lady in the whole world, and that I should know her for the Lady Prudence Brooke, without asking her name," said the lad. "Your captain is a fool!" cried Prue. But, try as hard as she might to look indignant, she blushed divinely and a furtive smile played hide-and-seek among her dimples. Of all Prue’s many charms there was none to equal her smile. It was, perhaps, on that account that she smiled often and so maintained a reputation for good-nature that lured many an unsuspecting victim into disaster. "That he is!" cried the messenger heartily. "For he said he’d done this beautiful lady a great injury, but for all that he would trust his life—and more than that—in her hands. Can any man be a worse fool than to trust a woman so far as that?" "Said he that, in very truth?" asked Prue, turning very pale. "Aye, and other things just as foolish," said the man, with the same stupid air of rusticity. "Will it please your ladyship to give me what the captain left with you?" She brought out the white silken packet from its hiding-place among the laces of her bodice, and held it out to him. "Tell your captain from me," she said disdainfully, "that I scarce know which is the greater fool—he or his messenger." The man laughed very heartily, and having bestowed the packet safely, opened his basket and took out a parcel and a letter. "The captain bade me present these to your ladyship," he said, and was bowing himself out, when she stopped him hurriedly. "I forget the captain’s address," she said; "I might want to—to send a message to him." "Any time your ladyship wants to send to him, a word to Steve Larkyn, at Pip’s Coffee-house, Essex Street, Strand, will find your ladyship’s humble servant, who will be most honored by any commands you lay upon him," said the man. And before she could speak again, had disappeared. Prue opened the parcel, which contained a long, narrow box of perfumed wood, lined with pink sarsenet. The next moment, she was flying up-stairs, two at a time, in her haste to display the contents to her cousin. [Illustration: Prue opened the parcel.] "Look, Peggie, did you ever see anything half so lovely?" she cried, holding out for her inspection a pair of long silk gloves as filmy as a cobweb and exquisitely embroidered with seed-pearls. Peggie dared not move her head, for the coiffeur was busy with his tongs, but she rolled her eyes round until she saw the gloves, and then rolled them up as far as they would go to emphasize her one word of admiration, "Incomparable!"