been the charming tale of "Picciola." It was of course the law of the
place that they were never to take no notice, as Mr. Buckton said, whom
they served; but this also never prevented, certainly on the same
gentleman's own part, what he was fond of describing as the underhand
game. Both her companions, for that matter, made no secret of the number
of favourites they had among the ladies; sweet familiarities in spite of
which she had repeatedly caught each of them in stupidities and mistakes,
confusions of identity and lapses of observation that never failed to
remind her how the cleverness of men ends where the cleverness of women
begins. "Marguerite, Regent Street. Try on at six. All Spanish lace.
Pearls. The full length." That was the first; it had no signature.
"Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. Impossible to-night, dining Haddon.
Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, but could do play Wednesday. Will try
Haddon for Savoy, and anything in the world you like, if you can get
Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite awful.
Cissy." That was the second. The third, the girl noted when she took
it, was on a foreign form: "Everard, Hotel Brighton, Paris. Only
understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps
others. Come. Mary."

Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she
had ever seen--or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for
she had seen stranger things than that--ladies wiring to different
persons under different names. She had seen all sorts of things and
pieced together all sorts of mysteries. There had once been one--not
long before--who, without winking, sent off five over five different
signatures. Perhaps these represented five different friends who had
asked her--all women, just as perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or other
of them, were wiring by deputy. Sometimes she put in too much--too much
of her own sense; sometimes she put in too little; and in either case