"Was it not Colonel Winslow, papa, who stayed with us at Bordighera five or six years ago?" "That was the man." "I was in short frocks at the time, and I remember that I quite fell in love with him." "I should advise you not to repeat the process now," remarked young Deane in an aside to her. "And why not, pray?" she asked in the same tone. "Colonel Winslow, let me tell you, is a very charming man. I always did like elderly men better than boys. I think it very likely that I shall fall desperately in love with him." Without giving her lover time to reply, she picked up her hat, and swinging it by its ribbons, passed out through one of the long windows. Before she had time to cross the lawn and plunge into the shrubbery beyond, Walter was following her. Drelincourt and his wife stood watching them through the other window. The twenty years which had passed over Felix Drelincourt's head since his first wife's death had changed him very little to outward seeming. His black hair was turning gray about the temples, his long, thin face looked a trifle longer and thinner, a few crow's feet had gathered about his eyes, and there was a slight but perceptible stoop of his tall, lean figure. And that was all. "I hope that Colonel Winslow will make a long stay with us," remarked Mrs. Drelincourt, as she seated herself in a favorite easy chair. "Why do you hope so?" "Because the presence of your old friend will be such a pleasure to you; because he will cheer your loneliness, and----" "Mr. Ormsby," intoned the solemn voice of Wicks, the butler, before any one was aware that the door had been opened. Drelincourt turned on the instant, and confronted his visitor, one lean, muscular hand gripping the back of his wife's chair like a vise. Our old acquaintance, his silk, hat balanced carefully in his left hand, advanced with that air of self-consequence which was so much a part of him that he could no more have divested himself of it than he could-have unscrewed and laid aside one of his limbs. He never forgot that he was Mr. Ormsby, of Denham Lodge--not even when he repeated aloud the responses in church and avouched himself a miserable sinner. He was considerably stouter than when we saw him last, and more scant of breath. His cheeks, too, were fuller and rounder, and his double chin more noticeable than of yore. His complexion was no longer mottled, but of one uniform tint, and that the tint of a boiled lobster, while his once sandy hair had turned completely white. In other respects no change was discernible in him.