ways
remember you, and love you for your sweet sympathy. And you want my
autograph, of course? Don't mind asking--I shall be only _too_
pleased!"

Katrine's flush deepened to rose. Bewilderment, embarrassment, and a
chilling disillusion seemed for the moment to have deprived her of
speech. The gorgeous figure towered over her, the brilliant eyes blazed
relentlessly upon her face. Grizel stood meekly in the background, her
face all infantile sweetness.

"I,--thank you! I don't collect autographs, but I shall be--honoured to
have yours. Miss Dundas can give you my address."

"That's quite all right. I'll send it soon, with an appropriate
quotation for your dear little album. `Be good, sweet maid, All lame
dogs aid,' With best wishes from Nellie's Mother..."

She smirked once more. Katrine was breathlessly demanding of herself if
this could indeed be the woman who had written such masterly books, when
the girl who had been standing at a discreet distance during the short
interview, came forward and spoke in an apologetic voice:--

"Mrs Singleton! I'm sorry, but father has an appointment to meet a
friend in the rose garden, I'm afraid we must really move on."

"Singleton... Incognito! The name she travels by, don't you know,"
naughty Grizel mumbled in explanation, as the little party turned away,
but the truth burst upon Katrine in an all-illuminating flash, and she
was not to be caught again.

"Grizel, you horror! To make me a laughing stock... What a fool she
must have thought me, standing gaping with admiration! `Nellie's
Mother' indeed! An idol toppled at that moment. I _was_ disillusioned,
but living in the same house with an author prepares one for so many
eccentricities, that I still believed... Well! it came off very well
that time, but don't try it again!"

Grizel continued to chuckle in soft, retrospective enjoyment.

"Oh, it was grand! Mrs Singleton is a capital actress, and she played
up like a man. It _was_ delicious to see you standing there, all
humility and adulation, such a douce, modest, young woman, burning
incense to a master mind. If only that tiresome girl had not come up at
the wrong moment, I might have faked all the wig bigs in turn, and had
the time of my life!"

Katrine's lips twisted in an enigmatical smile. She was feeling gay and
young; the prickly dignity which had made her resent any approach to a
joke at her own expense, had given place to a humorous enjoym