would be paid to give her up to no one else."

"Oh, you plan very well," scoffed Miss Morris, "but you don't
DO anything."

Carlton was saved the necessity of doing anything that same
morning, when the English captain in attendance on the Duke
sent his card to Carlton's room. He came, he explained, to
present the Prince's compliments, and would it be convenient
for Mr. Carlton to meet the Duke that afternoon? Mr. Carlton
suppressed an unseemly desire to shout, and said, after a
moment's consideration, that it would. He then took the
English captain down stairs to the smoking-room, and rewarded
him for his agreeable message.

The Duke received Carlton in the afternoon, and greeted him
most cordially, and with as much ease of manner as it is
possible for a man to possess who has never enjoyed the
benefits of meeting other men on an equal footing. He
expressed his pleasure in knowing an artist with whose work he
was so familiar, and congratulated himself on the happy
accident which had brought them both to the same hotel.

"I have more than a natural interest in meeting you," said the
Prince, "and for a reason which you may or may not know. I
thought possibly you could help me somewhat. I have within
the past few days come into the possession of two of your
paintings; they are studies, rather, but to me they are even
more desirable than the finished work; and I am not correct in
saying that they have come to me exactly, but to my sister,