'I don't mean your health. You look all right. But don't you want to jump into a galvanic battery, and get telegraphed all over creation in five minutes? Bless my soul!' 'No; London is more than enough for me just now, little as I have seen of it.' 'Bless me, Osborne, let me shake your hand again. If I could only meet a woman like you, I think I should marry her, and settle down with, say, a thousand or two miles of rope.' 'But I should fancy a man with your enormous experience of travel would prefer a wife who could talk over the many places you had seen, and the customs you had observed.' The blue eyes of the speaker were fixed earnestly on the traveller. 'Well, I don't know. It would be a fascinating novelty to have a wife who had never been beyond the village-green. But the thing might grow monotonous after awhile. There was only one woman who ever made me think of settling down. When I speak of settling down, I mean on a continent or two.' 'And what was she?' 'A great go-about, like myself.' 'Like the lady who sat opposite you at dinner, to-day?' The steadfast blue eyes never moved from the face of the other man. Nevill bent his head forward, and said, in a dropped voice, so that the others could not hear,-- 'It was she. I thought seriously of staying in New-York, and trying if I could make any impression on her.' 'And why did you not?' The blue eyes now fell to the ground. 'Well, you see, the States, Canada, Spain, and Algiers were all waiting for me.' 'And so you did not make love to her?' 'Couldn't, my dear boy. Hadn't time.' 'And where do you go to from London?' 'India.' 'When?' 'That will depend upon my luck.' 'Your luck with what?' 'Miss Gordon. I think I shall give myself a holiday, and a chance of settling down this time. Come, let us join the ladies.' They reached the drawing-room. Nevill, leaning on the arm of Osborne, walked to where Miss Gordon sat on a couch. When he came in front of her, he said,-- 'Allow me, Miss Gordon, to present to you my old and valued friend, Mr Simeon Stylites. He has, to honour your arrival in London, just stepped down from his pillar on which he was born, and where he has spent all his life.' 'A descendant of the saint?' she asked archly. 'No; a descendant of the pillar. But really, Miss Gordon, Mr Osborne is a most remarkable man, and I recommend him to your best consideration. He is the Captain Cook of our time, and the enlightened savages have a savoury treat in store for them.' 'A great traveller?' she asked, with a look of interest. 'No. But his is the best performance on record at staying at home.' 'Really!' with a soft laugh. She held out her hand frankly to him. 'I am glad to meet someone who is not travel-worn, and tired of half the world.' 'This is the first time Mr Osborne has ever been fifty miles from home, and his home is a small town in the Midlands, Stratford-on-Avon.'