and good-morning when I'm not too late, and an occasional salaam
during the day, just to see that she's there all right!

"We have just been giving a big send-off to a fellow in the regiment,
Bedford by name, who is taking a few months' sick leave. His people are
to meet him in Egypt as he can't stand an English winter, and he hopes
to get back in spring. A bad case of rheumatism, which will play the
dickens with his work if it is not stopped in time. The desert air is
the best cure he can have, and he ought to put in a pretty good time.
You'd like Bedford. A big, bony chap, rather after your own description
of the fortunate orphan, with a curt, shy manner, which the women seem
to approve. With men he is as straight as a die, and a splendid
soldier. It gives one a choke in the throat to see Bedford hobble.

"I've told him that I know a spinster lady in England who collects
brasses, and asked him to keep a look-out for old specimens, so I expect
you'll hear from him one of these days. It will give him an interest in
poking about, and besides--Christmas is coming!

"Well, good-bye, little girl. Take care of yourself, and look forward
as I do to a good time coming!

"Yours ever,

"Jim Blair."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Grizel in a grey dress, with a hat wreathed with violets, was a shock to
Katrine's sensibilities. In theory she disapproved of conventional
mourning, and approved of fulfilling the wishes of the dead; in reality
she was still under the thraldom of public opinion, and the prospect of
walking down the High Street with a mourner in colours assumed the
dimensions of a dread. "They" would say,--what would "they" say?

The unchanged demeanour of the mourner was likewise a shock. There was
every reason why Lady Griselda's death should be regarded as a relief,
but an assumption of regret and gravity were customary under the
circumstances, and Grizel was not even subdued. She smiled, and jested,
preserved her lazy, untroubled air, and to an outside eye was in no
respect altered by the happenings of the last weeks. Katrine waited
impatiently for some reference to the dramatic will, and when none came,
was driven to open the subject herself.

"Isn't it glorious," she questioned curiously, "to be mistress of that
enormous fortune? To know that you can practically get anything in the
whole world which you happen to fancy?"

Grizel stroked her nose, her eyes asking the question which would have
been