desperate cut at the runaway!"

MRS. DALE.--"She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has
something very winning."

RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--"So winning, that it is strange she is not
won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!"

MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more
effective grape-charge).--"Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have
a very pretty fortune."

RICCABOCCA.--"Ah!"

MRS. DALE. "Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four."

RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--"If Mrs.
Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her
portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is
not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!"

The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the
whist-players.

Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. It would be such
a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the large,
comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-
posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single