"I don't know. Mr. Granger talked some time ago of spending the autumn abroad, and asked me if I should like to see a New-Year's day in Paris. I think, if I were to express a wish about it, he would take me there; and it would be such happiness to me to see Austin!" And then Mrs. Granger thought of her baby, and wondered whether the atmosphere of Paris would be favourable to that rare and beauteous blossom; whether the tops-and-bottoms of the French capital would agree with his tender digestive machinery, and if the cowkeepers of the Faubourg St. Honore were an honest and unadulterating race. The very notion of taking the treasure away from his own nurseries, his own cow, his own goat-chaise, was enough to make her shudder. "It would be the best chance for his redemption. A little womanly kindness and counsel from you to the wife might bring about a happier state of things in his home; and a man who can be happy at home is in a measure saved. It is hardly possible for your brother to mix much with the people amongst whom I saw him without injury to himself. They are people to whom dissipation is the very salt of life; people who breakfast at the Moulin Rouge at three o'clock in the afternoon, and eat ices at midnight to the music of the cascade in the Bois; people to be seen at every race-meeting; men who borrow money at seventy-five per cent to pay for opera-boxes and dinners at the Cafe Riche, and who manage the rest of their existence on credit." "But what could my influence do against such friends as these?" asked Clarissa in a hopeless tone. "Who can say? It might do wonders. I know your brother has a heart, and that you have power to touch it. Take my advice, Mrs. Granger, and try to be in Paris as soon as you can." "I will," she answered fervently. "I would do anything to save him." She looked at her watch, and rose from the seat under the hawthorn. "It is nearly two o'clock," she said, "and I must go back to the house. You will come to luncheon, of course?" "Thanks--no. I have an engagement that will take me back to the town immediately." "But Mr. Granger will be surprised to hear that you have been here without calling upon him." "Need Mr. Granger hear of my coming?" George Fairfax asked in a low tone. Clarissa flushed scarlet. "I have no secrets from my husband, Mr. Fairfax," she said, "even about trifles." "Ten thousand pardons! I scarcely want to make my presence here a secret; but, in short, I came solely to speak to you about a subject in which I knew you were deeply interested, and I had not contemplated calling upon Mr. Granger."