take findin'. They don't come to me; I has to go to them. It's 'ard--
damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a lettuce-leaf."

He gloomily withdrew.

Mr. Marrapit's face was angrily twitching. The moment was not
propitious for continuing her conversation, and with a little sigh
Mrs. Major withdrew.

But it was upon that night that she inscribed in her diary:

_"Getting on with Mr. M. Should suc. Precip. fat."_



IV.

A last peep, ere we hurry across the bridge, will disclose to us Mr.
Bob Chater still pressing upon Mary the attentions which her position,
in relation to his, made it so difficult for her to escape. Piqued by
her attitude towards him, he was the more inflamed than ordinarily he
would have been by the fair face and neat figure that were hers. Yet
he made no headway; within a month of the date of his return to Palace
Gardens was as far from conquest as upon that night in the nursery.

To a City friend, Mr. Lemuel Moss, dining at 14 Palace Gardens with
him one night, he explained affairs.

"Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is," said
Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after