"To you?"

"No, to my groom. Would you like to see it? It is a curiosity."

He sent one of the club waiters for his servant, and his servant for
his desk, and produced the letter.

"There!" said Vandeleur. "She looks like a queen, and steps like an
empress, and this is how she writes:


"'DEAR JORGE--i have got the sak, an' praps your turn nex. dear jorge
he alwaies promise me the grey oss, which now an oss is life an death
to me. If you was to ast him to lend me the grey he wouldn't refuse
you,

"'Yours respecfully,

"'RHODA SOMERSET.'"



When the letter and the handwriting, which, unfortunately, I cannot
reproduce, had been duly studied and approved, Vandeleur continued--

"Now, you know, she had her good points, after all. If any creature was
ill, she'd sit up all night and nurse them, and she used to go to
church on Sundays, and come back with the sting out of her; only then
she would preach to a fellow, and bore him. She is awfully fond of
preaching. Her dream is to jump on a first-rate hunter, and ride across