least take precautions, and he didn't mind telling her that there were several he had taken. "I don't know what you mean, but it seems to me quite the best precaution would be to care for a charming, steady girl like Biddy. Then you'd be quite in shelter, you'd know the worst that can happen to you, and it wouldn't be bad." The objection he had made to this plea is not important, especially as it was not quite candid; it need only be mentioned that before the pair parted Julia said to him, still in reference to their young friend: "Do go and see her and be nice to her; she'll save you disappointments." These last words reverberated for him--there was a shade of the portentous in them and they seemed to proceed from a larger knowledge of the subject than he himself as yet possessed. They were not absent from his memory when, in the beginning of May, availing himself, to save time, of the night-service, he crossed from Paris to London. He arrived before the breakfast-hour and went to his sister's house in Great Stanhope Street, where he always found quarters, were she in town or not. When at home she welcomed him, and in her absence the relaxed servants hailed him for the chance he gave them to recover their "form." In either case his allowance of space was large and his independence complete. He had obtained permission this year to take in scattered snatches rather than as a single draught the quantum of holiday to which he was entitled; and there was, moreover, a question of his being transferred to another capital--in which event he believed he might count on a month or two in England before proceeding to his new post.