From what you write I gather that the Marquis of Valmond is _épris_ with Mrs. Smith. Horrid woman! the Chevingtons have met her. Mrs. Chevington was here this morning to enquire after my neuralgia. She said that Mr. Smith met his wife in Johannesburg five years ago before he "arrived." He used to wear overalls, and carry a pick on his shoulder, and spent his days digging in the earth, but he stopped at sunset, as I should think he well might, and invariably went to the same inn to refresh himself, where Mrs. Smith's mother cooked his dinner and Mrs. Smith herself gave him what she called a "corpse-reviver" from behind the bar. At night, a great many men who dug in the earth with Mr. Smith would come for "corpse-revivers," and they called Mrs. Smith "Polly," and the mother "old girl." And one day Mr. Smith found a nugget as big as a roc's egg when he was digging in the earth, and after that he stopped. The funny part was that "Polly" always said he would never find anything, and he had a wager with her that if he did she should marry him. So that is the story of their courtship and marriage, and they have millions. Mrs. Chevington vouches for the truth of it all, for Algy Chevington was out in Johannesburg at the time, and he dug in the same hole with Mr. Smith and knows all about him and "Polly," only Algy never found anything, for the flowers in Mrs. Chevington's hat were in the bonnet she wore all last spring. But let us leave these horrid Smiths; I am sure they are horrid. I can't understand how Lady Cecilia puts up with them. Mrs. Chevington says she hears Sir Trevor is one of the directors in the Yerburg Mine. Algy called him a guinea-pig, and said he wished he was one. {_An Eligible Parti_} Lord Valmond has fifty thousand a year and six places besides the house in Grosvenor Square. You will hardly meet a more eligible _parti_; I hear he is very fast; they say he gave Betty Milbanke, the snake-dancer at the Palace, all the diamonds she wears. If he is anything like his father was, he must be both good-looking and fascinating. The late Marquis was the handsomest man save one that I have ever seen, and could have married any of the Duchess of Rougemont's daughters if he had been a valet instead of a marquis, and the Duchess was the proudest woman in England. The girl who gets this Valmond will not only be lucky but clever; the way to attract him is to snub him; the fools that have hitherto angled for him have always put cake on their hooks; but, if I were fishing in the water in which My Lord Valmond disported himself, I should bait my hook with a common worm. It is something he has never yet seen. {_The African Millionaire_}