her eye, for all that, that recalled at times the vivid keenness of
Elma's, and her cheek had once been as delicate and creamy a brown
as her pretty daughter's. "Girls are so romantic," Mrs. Clifford
repeated once more, in a dreamy way, "and she was evidently impressed
by him."

"Well, I'm glad I made inquiries at once about these two young
men, anyhow, "the Companion of St. Michael and St. George responded
with fervour, clasping his wizened little hands contentedly over
his narrow waistcoat. "It's a precious odd story, and a doubtful
story, and not at all the sort of story one likes one's girl to be
any way mixed up with. For my part, I shall give them a very wide
berth indeed in future; and there's no reason why Elma should ever
knock up against them."

"Who told you they were nobodies?" Mrs. Clifford inquired, drawing
a wistful sigh.

"Oh, Tom Clark was at school with them," the ex-administrator continued,
with a very cunning air, "and he knows all about them--has heard
the whole circumstances. Very odd, very odd; never met anything
so queer in all my life; most mysterious and uncanny. They never
had a father; they never had a mother; they never had anybody on
earth they could call their own; they dropped from the clouds, as
it were, one rainy day, without a friend in the world, plump down
into the Charterhouse. There they were well supplied with money,
and spent their holidays with a person at Brighton, who wasn't
even supposed to be their lawful guardian. Looks fishy, doesn't
it? Their names are Cyril and Guy Waring--and that's all they know
of themselves. They were educated like gentlemen till they were