seeking something to read.

"You seem to have frightened away Miss Kite," remarked the lady who
was cousin to a baronet.

"It seems so," admitted the stranger.

"My cousin, Sir William Bosster," observed the crocheting lady, "who
married old Lord Egham's niece--you never met the Eghams?"

"Hitherto," replied the stranger, "I have not had that pleasure."

"A charming family. Cannot understand--my cousin Sir William, I mean,
cannot understand my remaining here. 'My dear Emily'--he says the
same thing every time he sees me: 'My dear Emily, how can you exist
among the sort of people one meets with in a boarding-house.' But
they amuse me."

A sense of humour, agreed the stranger, was always of advantage.

"Our family on my mother's side," continued Sir William's cousin in
her placid monotone, "was connected with the Tatton-Joneses, who when
King George the Fourth--" Sir William's cousin, needing another reel
of cotton, glanced up, and met the stranger's gaze.

"I'm sure I don't know why I'm telling you all this," said Sir
William's cousin in an irritable tone. "It can't possibly interest
you."

"Everything connected with you interests me," gravely the stranger