by the time we get back to London it will be
late enough to send the lads back to your
sister's."

It was thus agreed that their afternoon
should be spent in keeping these wild youths
quiet by taking them to the Crystal Palace,
and thither they repaired, stopping on their
way at the India House in Victoria-street,
where Lady Milson left a message for Sir John,
to say that she was not going to the National
Gallery, but that he would find her at the
Crystal Palace until half-past five.

'Schoolboys seem to have an extraordinary
facility of getting hungry at all times. Two
hours after eating they are invariably ready
again for food. Lady Fantzle knew this, and,
partly from her habitual wish to please every one,
partly owing to her desire that the boys should
not get into mischief whilst under her charge,
she proposed, shortly after they arrived at
Sydenham, indulging her nephews in a modest
repast of ices and biscuits, although little more
than two hours had passed since they had risen
from her abundantly provided luncheon-table in
Harley-street. To this Lady Milson agreed,
and the whole party turned into the refreshment
-rooms, and sat down at one of the marble-
topped tables which always look so cool and
inviting in the hottest weather. There were
not many persons present at the time, but
amongst them was a couple who seemed to be
laughing very heartily at something. The lady,
who had her face turned towards Lady Fantzle' s
party, was young, handsome, a very decided
brunette, with very fine black eyes, and,
although well, somewhat over-dressed. The
gentleman had his back to the new comers;
presently he turned round, and Sir John and
Lady Milson looked at each other.

No matter how innocent or upright in his
acts and intentions a man may be, to find
himself in the position which Sir John did, could
hardly prove other than awkward in the
extreme. He had left home in the morning, telling
his wife that he was going into the City on
business, and expressing great doubts whether
he would have time to meet her even at the
end of the afternoon in Trafalgar-square; and
here she finds him, not only taking his ease
at the Crystal Palace, but accompanied by a
young, good-looking, and somewhat
overdressed girl. The very fact of finding him
how and where she did, added to her already
excited suspicions about the cheque-book, was
enough to make her think that Sir John had
private amusements and companionships which,
to a wife, must be the reverse of pleasing.
However, Annie was not a woman to let others
see that she suspected hidden rocks. To use a
somewhat hackneyed expression, she always
washed her dirty linen at home. She was,
moreover, a woman of great presence of mind,
and so a moment's reflection made her equal to
the present emergency. " I see," said she to
Lady Fantzle, in the coolest way possible,
"that Sir John has been victimised into bringing
one of those Miss Smiths out to see this
place. I'll go and speak to him; for if he
brings her over here she'll bother you
fearfully." And to the place in which her husband
was sitting she went, trusting with good reason to
Lady Fantzle's short-sightedness, that the way
in which she treated her husband's companion
might not be seen by the old lady.

"I have saved your reputation with Lady
Fantzle," she whispered to Sir John, in a tone
and with a manner which he had never seen her
assume before in his life; " don't disgrace me.
I have said that your companion is a Miss
Smith, the daughter of a friend of ours; keep
up the untruth for the present, at least."

During this short speech she never once looked
at poor Miss Faber, who sat wondering who the
lady with the stern manner could be; why Sir
John, who had until now been so gay and pleasant,
seemed so much put out; and what the
mysterious whisperings could be about. The
young lady little thought that she was the
innocent cause of very serious misunderstandings
between a couple that had lived happily together
for thirty years. Sir John went over to
speak to Lady Fantzle, said something about
being hampered with a young lady who had
never been in London before, and then returned
to his charge, but in no mood for enjoying any
more his day at the Crystal Palace. Miss Faber
saw at once that something had gone wrong,
and herself proposed that they should return to
town at an early hour. Poor girl, her enjoyment
for that day was entirely gone.

Sir John, after seeing his charge to the
door of her house at Kensington, and making
some excuse for not going in, went to his club,
and ordering dinner, sat down to think over
how he had better get out of the mess which
his friend's folly had got him into. Should
he at once go home and tell Annie the whole
story? That would be the plainest, simplest,
and most certain mode of procedure; but
would it not be betrayal of the confidence
placed in him by Colonel Laber? The latter
had made it a particular condition that Lady
Milson should know nothing of his story,
and would it be right to betray him? And
yet how else could he satisfy his wife that there
was nothing wrong in his conduct? He knew
Annie was a woman of sense, and yet appearances
were so very much against him, that he
could only clear up his conduct by telling her
the whole truth, and this was exactly what he
could not do. And yet, " something " had to
be done— but what? As he sat at dinner, old
Colonel Duckson (a bachelor of sixty-five, with
the pursuits of a very wild young man of
twenty-four, and who believed himself to be
barely in the prime of life) came and sat down
by Sir John, joking him in a winking sort of
way about the " good-looking young party " he
had seen him with near the Kensington station
that morning. Duckson lived in Kensington,
and from what he said it would seem that he
knew full well that Milson often visited that
part of London, of course giving him credit for
a very different intention from the real one which