"You MUST come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter," said Lady Selina Vipont. "A pleasant party,--you know most of them,--the Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty Ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina." "We can't let you off," said, sleepily, Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made more than one bon mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state. VANCE.--"Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for--" LADY SELINA.--"So charmingly dressed-so picturesque! Besides, what matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?" VANCE.--"Rambling about, taking sketches." LADY SELINA (directing her eyeglass towards Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof).--"But your companions, your brother? and that pretty little girl,--your sister, I suppose?" VANCE (shuddering).--"No, not relations. I took charge of the boy,-- clever young fellow; and the little girl is--" LADY SELINA.--"Yes. The little girl is--" VANCE.--"A little girl, as you see: and very pretty, as you say,--subject for a picture." LADY SELINA (indifferently).--"Oh, let the children go and amuse themselves somewhere. Now we have found you; positively you are our prisoner." Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft- hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him, as on most men who are blest with noses in the air. Those great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures; but they gave him the position which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the help of rank and fashion. In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel. "I must go to Richmond with these people. I know you'll excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow. By the by, as you are going to the post-office here for the letter you expect from your mother, ask for my letters too. You will take care of little Sophy, and [in a whisper] hurry her out of the garden, or that Grand Mogul feminine, Lady Selina, whose condescension would crush the Andes, will be stopping her as my /protege/, falling in raptures with that horrid coloured print, saying, 'Dear, what pretty sprigs! where can such things be got?' and learning perhaps how Frank Vance saved the Bandit's Child from the Remorseless Baron. 'T is your turn now. Save your friend. The Baron was a lamb compared to a fine lady." He pressed Lionel's unresponding hand, and was off to join the polite merrymaking of the Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes. Lionel's pride ran up to the fever-heat of its thermometer; more roused, though, on behalf of the unconscious Sophy than himself. "Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and choose a doll. You may have one now, without fear of distracting you from what I hate to think you ever stooped to perform."