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"She left New York several weeks ago,--didn't you know it? Dear ht everybody was convulsed at the news!"

The speaker, a young wo chair in the verandah of a favourite sued her shoulders expressively as she uttered these words to anear her with a newspaper in his hand He was a very stiff-jointed upright personage with iron grey hair and features hard enough to suggest their having been carved out of wood

"No--I didn't know it"--he said, enunciating his words in the deliberate dictatorial manner common to a certain type of American--"If I had I should have taken steps to prevent it"

"You can't take steps to prevent anything Morgana Royal decides to do!" declared his couess YOU couldn't stop her, Mr Sam Gwent!"

Mr Sam Gwent permitted himself to smile It was a smile that merely stretched the corners of his eniality

"Possibly not!" he answered--"But I should have had a try! I should certainly have pointed out to her the folly of her present adventure"

"Do you knohat it is?"

He paused before replying

"Well,--hardly! But I have a guess!"

"Is that so? Then I'll adreat compliment! But even Miss Lydia Herbert, brilliant woman of the world as she is, doesn't know EVERYTHING!"

"Not quite!" she replied, stifling a tiny yawn--"Nor do you! ButI know There's a lot one need never learn The chief business of life nowadays is to have heaps of ana's way"

Mr Sam Gwent folded up his newspaper, flattened it into a neat parcel, and put it in his pocket

"She has a great deal too --she does NOT kno to spend it,--not in the right woone off in the midst of many duties to society at a time when she should have stayed--"

Miss Herbert opened her brown, rather insolent eyes wide at this and laughed

"Does it matter?" she asked "The old man left his pile to her 'absolutely and unconditionally'--without any orders as to society duties And I don't believe YOU'VE any authority over her, have you? Or are you suddenly turning up as a trustee?"