Never shall I forget the bewildered amazement of the scrubby little editor of a sixpenny magazine who met me face to face thus accompanied in the Park one morning! That he knew the Earl of Elton by sight was evident, and that he also knew me his apoplectic stare confessed. He had pompously refused to even read any of my offered contributions on the ground that I had 'no name,'--and now--! he would have given a month's salary if I had but condescended to recognize him! I did not so condescend,--but passed him by, listening to, and laughing with my intended future father-in-law, who was retailing an extremely ancient joke for my benefit. The incident was slight, even trumpery,--yet it put me in a good humour, for one of the chiefest pleasures I had out of my wealth was the ability to repay with vengeful interest all the contempt and insult that had beaten me back from every chance of earning a livelihood while I was poor. In all my visits to the Eltons, I never saw the paralysed Countess again. Since the last terrible visitation of her dread disease, she had not moved. She merely lived and breathed--no more. Lord Elton told me that the worst part of her illness at present, so far as it affected those who had to attend upon her, was the particularly hideous alteration of her face. "The fact is," he said, not without a shudder--"she's dreadful to look at,--positively dreadful!--no longer human, you know. She used to be a lovely woman,--now she is literally frightful. Her eyes especially;--they are as scared and wild as if she had seen the devil. Quite an awful expression I assure you!--and it never alters. The doctors can do nothing--and of course it's very trying for Sibyl, and everybody."