"Take that to the banker's, and bring back a five-hundred pound note,"
she said. "I'll inclose it to the clergyman as coming from 'an unknown
friend.' And be quick about it. I am only a fallible mortal, Moody.
Don't leave me time enough to take the stingy view of five hundred
pounds."

Moody went out with the check. No delay was to be apprehended in
obtaining the money; the banking-house was hard by, in St. James's
Street. Left alone, Lady Lydiard decided on occupying her mind in the
generous direction by composing her anonymous letter to the clergyman.
She had just taken a sheet of note-paper from her desk, when a servant
appeared at the door announcing a visitor--

"Mr. Felix Sweetsir!"




CHAPTER III.

"MY nephew!" Lady Lydiard exclaimed in a tone which expressed
astonishment, but certainly not pleasure as well. "How many years is it
since you and I last met?" she asked, in her abruptly straightforward
way, as Mr. Felix Sweetsir approached her writing-table.

The visitor was not a person easily discouraged. He took Lady Lydiard's
hand, and kissed it with easy grace. A shade of irony was in his manner,
agreeably relieved by a playful flash of tenderness.

"Years, my dear aunt?" he said. "Look in your glass and you will see