"'FOR MY ROSE'S CHILD,' HE SAID, GENTLY". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

"HER HANDS CLASPED IN FRONT OF HER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

"SHE FOUND HERSELF KNEELING BESIDE HIM" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480




LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER

I

"Hullo! No!--Yes!--upon my soul, it _is_ Jacob! Why, Delafield, my dear
fellow, how are you?"

So saying--on a February evening a good many years ago--an elderly
gentleman in evening dress flung himself out of his cab, which had just
stopped before a house in Bruton Street, and hastily went to meet a
young man who was at the same moment stepping out of another hansom a
little farther down the pavement.

The pleasure in the older man's voice rang clear, and the younger met
him with an equal cordiality, expressed perhaps through a manner more
leisurely and restrained.

"So you _are_ home, Sir Wilfrid? You were announced, I saw. But I
thought Paris would have detained you a bit."

"Paris? Not I! Half the people I ever knew there are dead, and the rest