horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet
the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp
quite merrily. _Honneur au courage malheureux._ Let us stand aside in
the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of
war.

Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain
tropical monkey--name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of
her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same
eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes,
accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her
full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all
contentedly--not to say complacently--as part of the day's work. Her
husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal
or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maëlstrom, into which fair
fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable
fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky
at play for a long time--too constantly so, some said--and a pistol
bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that
she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average
heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora,
who treated her well on the whole, _en bonne princesse_.

It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we
determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure
imperceptibly to creep into the conversation.

Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would
not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those
two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of