"What an odd girl you are, Kate!" said Mrs. Battersea, as the sisters sat at breakfast next morning in their pretty suburban garden, with a table drawn under the acacia-tree, and as many birds, roses, and strawberries about them as if they were a hundred miles from London. "You lost the best chance yesterday that ever woman had, and all because you couldn't be in time for a train. My dear, I don't often scold; but it does provoke me to see you throw yourself away. I begin to think you'll never settle, Kate. You're worse than I was; you're worse than I am now!"

"That's a bad state of things," answered Kate saucily. "I shouldn't have thought it possible. But what's the use of settling, Auntie." The elder sister had once been taken for the younger's aunt, and the nickname had stuck to her. "You talk as if I was some sort of mess on a kitchen hob. Why should I settle, and why do you stir me up? I'm very nice as I am."

"So Mr. Goldthred seems to think!" answered her sister; "and if you'd only been with us yesterday, you'd have had him to yourself the whole afternoon. I'm sure he was disappointed; and to see the barefaced way that odious little Rosie made up to him was quite sickening! Kate—Kate—don't you want an establishment of your own?"

"What's the good?" replied the other, dipping a bit of cake in her coffee. "I'm very happy as I am—

Freedom and simplicity, say I; communism, equality, and fraternity!"

"Kate, you're talking nonsense," pursued Mrs. Battersea. "Nature never intended you for a country-mouse, and there's no such thing as equality, fraternity, and all that. Talk of men being brothers! Bosh! Men are intended for husbands, only you must strike while the iron's hot. They harden sadly if they're allowed to get cool. Oh, Kate! I do wish you'd been with us yesterday! We went on the river after dinner. There was a moon, and everything!"

"Did you have a good dinner?" asked Kate saucily.

"Of course we had," said the other. "But that's nothing to the purpose. I tell you the whole party were paired off, except Goldie; and he went about like a poor disconsolate bird in a frost. Rosie tried hard for him; but he wouldn't look at her; and, besides, she'd got her own admirer. I tell you, if you'd only been on the spot, the whole thing might have been settled."

"Who was there for you?" inquired Miss Kate, with mischievous eyes and a ripe cherry in her mouth, not much redder than the lips against which it bobbed.

"Why the Colonel, naturally," answered Mrs. Battersea. "You knew that quite well, so what's the use of asking? I shall 'shunt' the Colonel, Kate, after Goodwood, he's getting so very grey, and it looks really ridiculous amongst young people, like our party yesterday."

"By all means," assented Kate. "And who's to replace him? Not that half-bred American, Mr. Picard, I hope. Trust me, Auntie; I have predatory instincts, and they never deceive me. That man is an adventurer; he's not a gentleman. Look at him by the others: you see it at once."

Mrs. Battersea burst out laughing.

"Well done, Kate! This is indeed teaching your grandmother. Do you think I'm still too young to run alone? I ought to be flattered, and I am. Don't you trouble your head about Picard and me. He's useful for the present. When I've done with him, you may be pretty sure I shall drop him. Now tell me, dear, what the temptation was that kept you away all yesterday, and deprived our party, as the Colonel said, of the 'bonniest bud in the bouquet.'"

"I'd an adventure," enunciated Kate solemnly.

"Was he good looking?" exclaimed Mrs. Battersea.

"Very!" answered Kate. "But I only saw him asleep. He had the blackest curls and the longest eye-lashes I ever beheld on man or woman. Such a darling, Auntie! But though I kissed him without disturbing him one bit, I don't suppose he'll ever pay me the gloves I'm entitled to by all the rules of racing."

Mrs. Battersea looked puzzled.

"What do you mean?" said she. "I never can quite make you out when you're in these wild moods. I hope you haven't been getting into mischief. Your spirits run away with you so, I ought never to let you out of my sight."

Kate laughed merrily.

"It's not much of a scrape this time," she answered, "nor much of a lark neither. I paid a morning visit in a fashionable quarter, and was detained longer than I anticipated, that's all. What should you say if I'd found something 'stolen or strayed, lost or mislaid;' something not actually advertised, but that would be worth 'a reward' all the same, if I was to produce it at one or two places I know in London, not to mention the cavalry barracks at Windsor?"

"You speak in parables," said the other, crumbling up bread and cream for her parrot. "When you come down to plain English and common sense, I shall be able to understand."

"I've found Miss Ross!" Kate closed her pretty lips so tight after this startling information that the cherry snapped off at its stalk, and bobbed into her coffee-cup.

"You've found Miss Ross!" repeated her sister, in accents of the utmost astonishment. "Well, it's too bad of Captain Vanguard; quite too bad, I must say! And, Kate, I won't have you getting mixed up with that kind of thing. Recollect we can scarcely hold our own where we are; and although, for myself, I think respectable society rather slow, I don't want you to make the mistakes I did. Never set the world at defiance, my dear; it don't answer. You may humbug people to any extent, but they won't stand being bullied! Don't go near her again, Kate, I beg. Somebody is sure to see you."

"Captain Vanguard has no more to do with it than you have," retorted Miss Cremorne, ignoring her sister's late monitions and reverting to the first count in the indictment. "Why can you never let him alone? Tell me, Auntie, once for all, what's this grudge of yours against Frank? Poor thing! How has it affronted its aunt?"

Mrs. Battersea looked grave.

"He'll never have a chance of affronting me, Kate, unless he does it through you. He hangs about here a great deal too much. He haunts the places we go to like a ghost; and he looks like a ghost besides, for he has lost his colour, grown very silent, and never smiles. I say nothing, but——"

"You think a great deal, no doubt," replied her sister. "You think wrong this time, though, if you fancy I care two straws about Frank, or Frank about me. He was pleasant enough, I grant you; but now that he's got sad, and quiet, and stupidish, he bores me. You ought to know my tastes better than most people, dear. You may be pretty sure one of your languishing swains has very little chance. I hate long stories, long memories, long sighs, and long faces. If people like one, they should make one happy:

"Which only proves you were never in earnest, Kate," answered the elder woman; adding, with a sigh, "So much the better for you."

Perhaps Mrs. Battersea was thinking of a time long before she met the late Major Battersea, a time when Kate was a little toddling thing, with fat legs, chubby arms, and the manners of a confirmed and shameless flirt; a time when the sands of the Isle of Wight borrowed a golden gleam from that light which so irradiates the present to leave behind it such grim, ghostly shadows on the past; when the waves sang soft sweet music, softer, sweeter, for the whisper that stole through the drowsy wash and murmur of the tide,—sadder, too, for an instinct that warns the human heart how they will make the same melodious moan, unchanged, unpitying, after they have closed over its happiness for ever; when morning was a vision of hope, and evening a dream of peace, and all day long a waking reality of happiness, because of a straw hat, a sun-burned face, and a light laugh. Perhaps she was contrasting a certain frank, innocent, loving girl, trusting, and true-hearted, with the woman of after years, marred and warped by her first disappointment, carrying war on bravely in the enemy's country, but aching still under all her armour of pride and indifference, with the dull pain of that first grievous wound.

"So much the better for me," repeated Kate thankfully. "You would have said so, indeed, if you could have seen that poor thing yesterday. Pale, worn, dejected, and, my dear, so very badly dressed! I declare I hardly knew her again, and I used to think, for quite a dark beauty, she was the best-looking woman in London. Do you suppose, Auntie, there really is such a thing as a broken heart, or is it all nonsense and what they put in novels, and poems, and things? It must hurt horribly if there is!"

"Some people mind it more than others," answered her sister. "Let us be thankful, Kate, that you and I are not of the caring sort. But what do you suppose has brought Miss Ross to this pass? She used to be one of your regular high-fliers. Went to Court, I fancy, and all the rest of it. And how do you know your precious Frank Vanguard hadn't a finger in the pie?"

"Because I do know," affirmed Miss Kate. "You never saw such a place as she was living in; and I got everything out of the people in the house before I had been there ten minutes."

"I can easily believe it," said her sister. "As usual, taking up another's business and neglecting your own."

"But I mean to make it my own," protested Kate. "You would have been as keen about it as I am if you had seen the poor thing huddled up in her refuge like a frightened cat in a corner. Table on three legs, chairs falling to pieces, such a small room, such stuffy furniture, and you might have written your name in the dust on everything. Even her gown was all frayed at the skirt, and there wasn't another in the wardrobe, for I peeped in to see. I shall be off again directly after breakfast, and perhaps to-day I may worm something out of her, and get her to let me help her in earnest, you know. How sad, Auntie, to come to such a pass! Fancy not having enough to eat, and only one gown to put on!"

"But the child," persisted Mrs. Battersea, "the child couldn't have come there by chance. Kate, I wish you'd let it all alone."

"The child was as clean as a new pin," answered Miss Cremorne. "There was everything he could want arranged for him as nicely as if he was a little Emperor! That's why I'm sure she's his mother. I don't care if she's his grandmother a hundred times over. I'll stick by her now through this mess, whatever it is. I've gone in for it, and I'll see it out! I'll charter a Hansom, though; I won't take the brougham, it makes people stare."

Mrs. Battersea pondered, and the parrot, waiting for his breakfast, shrieked hideously.

"Don't you think I'm right?" asked the impatient girl.

"I know you won't be stopped," answered the other, "right or wrong. But were I in your place I should certainly not interfere. If Captain Vanguard has anything to do with the business, I cannot see what good will come of your mixing yourself up in it. Frank's very good-looking, I grant you, and pleasanter company than half the men we meet; but I don't suppose he really cares two pins for anything but his horses; and as for heart, my dear Kate, these guardsmen are all alike—they throw the article systematically away before their moustache is grown, and find they get on very much better without it afterwards."

"They may throw them about till they're tired," answered Kate. "They'll have to wait a long time before I stoop to pick one up, Auntie. I never saw the man yet that was worth crossing the street for, after a shower. Did you?"

"One, Kate," said Mrs. Battersea, "long ago. I'd have gone into the Serpentine, up to my neck at least, for him."

"Why didn't you?" asked the other. "What has become of him?"

"He never asked me," replied Mrs. Battersea, with something of a tremble in her voice. "I thought I was so sure of him, I could get him back at any time, and one fine morning I pulled my thread the least thing too hard, and it broke. I saw him the other day, Kate, quite by accident. He hasn't forgiven, for all the years that are past,—and, though it seems ridiculous, I haven't forgotten."

"Never say die! Auntie," laughed the girl. "You've plenty of admirers left!"

"Plenty!" said Mrs. Battersea; "but they're not the real stuff. They're like cheap dresses, my dear, look well enough while they're new, but when they've been worn a little, particularly in bad weather, they go all to pieces."

"The Colonel, for instance," observed Kate. "He's so threadbare now, I don't think he'll even make up into patch-work or even pen-wipers. Auntie, you're very hard upon the Colonel, and I do believe he's fond of you."

"So he ought to be," answered Mrs. Battersea. "But let the Colonel alone, Kate, and take my advice. If you find a man who really likes you better than his dinner, his Derby, his covert-shooting, or his best horse, don't stop to consider whether he is romantic, and popular, and admired. Make up your mind at once. Take him frankly, unless you absolutely hate the creature. Stand by him honestly, and never throw him over. When you're as old as I am you'll be glad you followed my advice."

"I must first catch my hare," replied Miss Kate, rising from the table; "and then there's an end of the excitement, the ups-and-downs, the ins-and-outs, the falls and fences, in short, all the fun of the hunt. Well, who knows! Perhaps my time may come, like another's.

But meanwhile I do very well as I am, and when I've found my master it will be quite soon enough to 'knuckle down' and give in. So now I'm off to my poor sick bird, to nurse her chick, and sleek her feathers, and put to rights her untidy little nest."

Accordingly, in less than ten minutes Miss Cremorne emerged into the sunshine, as well-looking and as well-dressed a young lady as could be seen treading the pavement of any street in London. A butcher's boy, with tray on shoulder, stopped short in his whistle to look after her, transported with admiration. A young man from the country stood stock-still under the very pole of an omnibus, and grinned his approval open-mouthed; while an old gentleman, who ought to have known better, crossed the muddiest part of the street, and affected great interest in an upholsterer's window, to get one more look at her pretty face as she tripped past. The very cabman whom she signalled off the rank forbore to overcharge her, and came down officiously from the perch of his Hansom to keep her dress off the wheel when she alighted, wondering the while at the homely exterior of the dwelling in which this vision of beauty disappeared.

"It's a queer start!" soliloquised that worthy in his own expressive vernacular; "and females, as a general rule, is up to all sorts of games. But she ain't one of that sort, she ain't. Blessed if she don't look as bold as Britannia, the beauty! and as h'innocent as a nosegay all the while!"