"Conspiracy, of course! It was the stock expedient of the gang--and a very ingenious one, I think; for of course the mesmerised one might turn up anywhere, and if she were not discovered, well and good; while if she were, all she had to say was that she was in a mesmeric trance. As it happened, the latter alternative occurred in both their attempts on me; but I give the girl credit for turning it off excellently well. In fact, she took a real artistic interest in her business. You see, she had been trained as a rope-dancer in her childhood, and afterwards she was on the stage for a time. She certainly had marvellous dramatic talent, and thoroughly enjoyed "taking a part." The realistic element that entered into her performances no doubt rendered them much more exciting than ordinary stage work, and perhaps, sometimes, she almost deceived herself." "Ah! I should not wonder. Well, and what was the meaning of that confusion about the steamboat and the train, and Birchmore's explanations?" "A mistake on their part--that's all. Accidents will happen, you know. I daresay my unexpected questions disconcerted them greatly; but I was unsuspicious enough, Heaven knows. What I admire as much as anything in their management of the affair was the skill with which they made me believe, from the outset, that I was forcing my company upon _them_, when in reality it was they who were leading me round by the nose." "Missus Gainsborough say de tea ready, sah!" said the sable servitor, opening the door. "Let's go up at once!" I exclaimed, rising from chair. "I shall hereafter feel a new interest in looking at Mrs. Gainsborough's diamonds!" THE CHRISTMAS GUEST: A MYTH. They were ideal young people, and lived in a fairy farmhouse, in the Eldorado of lovers. Everything went happily with them; no troublesome grown-up people thwarted or annoyed them; they could be together as much as they liked, and had never in their whole lives heard of such a thing as impropriety. They had no enemies, nor so much as a single friend with conscientious ideas of duty. In spite of all this they were remarkably content with each other and with the world at large, and never did any wrong, to speak of, from week's end to week's end. For the rest, they had lived and played together ever since they could remember, had never quarrelled except to provide a pretext for a reconciliation; and she had always called him Eros, and he had always called her Psyche. They loved each other with all their hearts, and were a living refutation of the folly of those who would persuade us that pain and struggle are the necessary discipline of human beings. To see these two was enough to make one believe in the feasibility of setting up a new Garden of Eden on a durable basis.