did, and in the practical part we relieved one another.” “And this was all a blind?” Usk ventured to ask, as a smile, called up by his recollections, crept over Mr Steinherz’s face. “It was all done with a purpose, and when by-and-by I was allowed to run down to the Adriatic for more important experiments on board the Claudine, though the limit of my stay was strictly fixed, I knew my time was at hand. But before it arrived something happened which changed the whole character of my flight. In her lifetime my mother had befriended a young girl, the last descendant of a noble, but poverty-stricken, family of Weldart. As a child, Konstantia von Lilienkranz had shown extraordinary talent in several directions, and her own intense desire was to go upon the stage. My mother dissuaded her from this, but sent her, at her own expense, to a famous conservatorium, where her musical gifts might be cultivated, intending to find her a post as Court pianist when she grew up. Her death left the poor girl friendless, for she knew too well the light in which her patroness had been regarded by the members of the Imperial family to seek help from them. The variety of her talents had created quite a sensation at the conservatorium, and admiring professors and fellow-students had done so much to spread her fame that she was actually offered an engagement to play _ingénue_ parts at a leading Vindobona theatre, while a great _maestro_ volunteered to train her to sing in grand opera. Remembering the wishes of her patroness, she refused both offers, and had the courage to strike out for herself in a new line--as a society entertainer, you would call it, I suppose. She gave a series of concerts at which she herself, either as singer, reciter, or instrumentalist, supplied all the items, and the idea was so new and daring that she was the sensation of the moment in the capital. This was soon after I had been allowed a little more freedom. I was anxious to show an interest in my mother’s _protégée_, and went to hear her play several times. I sent her bouquets, and asked to be presented to her, the girl receiving the attentions, as they were offered, purely as marks of kindness from the son of her patroness. But the censorious world thought otherwise, as I ought to have remembered would be only too likely in the case of a woman in her position. My cousins met me with meaning looks, and congratulated me on my conquest. ‘The stony-hearted Stanzerl,’ as the gilded youth of Vindobona called her, had stepped down from her pedestal, so they hinted. The cessation of my attentions might have ended the scandal as regarded myself, but the whispers had reached her. One day the old woman, half-attendant, half-duenna, who lived with her, came to me privately to beg me not to show any further interest in her charge, who was in the deepest distress owing to the reports spread concerning her. I was horrified and disgusted. That I should have brought this