IF cards are the devil's playthings, wet days are certainly his select playtime; and all the days before the Chinese Masquerade were very wet indeed. The Exquisite Mob returned from the Pump Room remarkably depressed in spirit. The forenoons passed away in the coffee-houses and the shops, but in the afternoons when it was wont to exercise itself and air its modes the stuffy parlours of Curtain Wells became vastly tiresome.

The result was that all the young gentlemen played very hard and very deep and very late, and Mr. Charles Lovely hardest, deepest, and latest of all. The old gentlemen all found their gout teazed them more lamentably. Even Beau Ripple grew tired of reading the Epodes of Horace and the Letters of Tully to his grey Angora cat. The ladies played Quadrille and talked scandal, while some of them, I grieve to say, supplied a foundation for much of the gossip.

Candlelight intrigues flourished, and there were not a few tragedies in porcelain, when some Sir John Vulcan, returning too soon from his favourite coffee-house, caught my Lady Venus in too ardent converse with some young Ensign Mars. Very red grew the gallant Ensign—near as red as his coat, while Sir John blustered and swore so loud that he almost cracked the walls with his fox-hunting voice, and my lady Venus fluttered her fan to the pace of her dainty heart, tinkling out exquisite little lies as soulless as unreal, but quite as fascinating as some frail musical box. And the trio acted and declaimed their time-honoured parts to a keyhole audience of lady's maid and gentleman's gentleman.

Very diverting the footmen of Curtain Wells found the story that evening, and very savoury it was voted below stairs—nearly as savoury as the stewed trotters over which it was related.

And so the days went by.

Pitter-pat went the rain on the window-panes, pitter-pat went the cards on the card tables, pitter-pat went the spoons in the coffee-cups, pitter-pat went my lady's shoes across the floor to watch for the third person, pitter-pat went many fans and many hearts.

Mrs. Courteen decked herself in the rosiest sattins, bade Betty close the shutters, draw the curtains and light the candles. Then she composed herself to read the last number of the Prattler until a knock at the door announced the arrival of Mr. Gregory Moon and Major Constantine Tarry. Both vowed that their enchantress looked vastly well, and nodded agreement with her assertion that she believed she had a very fresh colour, no doubt due to the tonick air of the Wells.

"It flushes one merely to go upstairs," she declared. "I vow I take as much exercise in going up and down stairs as I do in taking my morning saunter to the Pump Room." The climb was euphemistically known as the Saunter. "Lud, lud," continued the widow, "complexions are droll things."

"Monstrous elusive, ma'am," said the Justice rather gloomily.

"Ha, ha," yapped the Major, "I pickled my skin in the Low Countries."

"That would be injudicious for a delicate surface. Height, Major," sighed Mrs. Courteen, "height! How we pine for it. Mortals! Dear! Dear!"

"I remember I once examined a vagabond who claimed to have been there," remarked Mr. Moon. "We ordered him a whipping."

"What became of him?" asked Mrs. Courteen.

"I believe he died shortly afterwards. Well! well! Kill or cure! Kill or cure!"

The widow flashed her white shoulders in an elaborate shudder.

"Talking of kill or cure," exclaimed the Major, jumping up, "did I ever repeat my tale of the Hessian captain?"

"Probably," said Mr. Moon mildly.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"You are somewhat inclined to repetition, sir."

Mrs. Courteen hurriedly assured Major Tarry that she for one had positively never heard it.

"He did not say 'have you heard my story, ma'am,' the Justice went on in the calm voice of despair. "He said 'have I repeated it?' I merely remarked that he probably has—dozens of times!"—Mr. Moon burst out in the nearest approach to a passionate enunciation that he ever attained.

"I vow you do him an injustice. Pray tell us the story, Major," and the widow tapped the sword-arm of the infuriated soldier three times. The painted chicken-skin fell with so persuasive a touch that the Apple sank to its normal position and, having turned his back on Mr. Moon, the Major began his tale.

"Well, Madam, you must know that in the year ... but before I tell this story, I should like to give you some idea of the disposition of his Majesty's forces."

Mrs. Courteen sighed. She knew what giving an idea of the disposition of the forces meant. It was useless to protest however, for the Major was already marching round the room in search of appropriate furniture.

He instantly declared that Mr. Moon's chair was necessary to the illustration.

"Pray excuse me, sir!" he rapped out.

The Justice, with a reproachful glance at Mrs. Courteen, moved ponderously to the couch.

"Well, Madam, here are Thistleton's Dragoons," and he gave a twist to the chair as he spoke.

"Oh, yes! Very droll!" said Mrs. Courteen.

"Here," the Major continued, seizing another chair and planting it vigorously down by the couch, "here is Buckley's Foot."

"Mine, sir," said the Justice.

"Your what, sir?"

"My foot, sir, not Buckfeast's."

The Major withered his rival with an eloquent silence.

"Here am I," he said, snatching from the mantelpiece a diminutive Worcester shepherdess and placing it between the two chairs.

The widow gazed anxiously at the pastoral soldier. It belonged to the owner of the house.

"Here is Tournai. You'll pardon me, sir, but I should be obliged if you would hand me the couch," said the Major fiercely.

The Justice moved wearily to the window-seat. That, at all events, was a fixture, he reflected gratefully.

After much exertion Tarry succeeded in moving the couch in front of the door, so that if the piece of furniture in question was a poor representation of what it was intended to convey, it certainly made of Mrs. Courteen's front parlour something very like an impregnable fortress.

"I should be glad to give you some idea of the enemy's earthworks," said the Major with a covetous glance in the direction of the chintz window-curtains.

Mrs. Courteen's fleeting expression of dismay warned him to prune the luxuriance of his examples, and as at that moment a tap at the door necessitated the instant surrender of Tournai to admit Mrs. Betty farther operations were stopped. Moreover the sudden capitulation involved the fracture of the Worcester shepherdess which, as Mr. Moon sardonically supposed, served to illustrate the point of the story.

"You're killed, Tarry; you're dead as mutton. I doubt a cure is inconceivable."

Betty held a note in her hands.

"From Bow Ripple," she whispered excitedly.