ler. "Yes, you may, just to keep my dress off
the wheel, but you mustn't come in. I said I'd a treat for you; now
tell me without prevarication--will you have sleeve-links with a
cipher or a monogram? Speak up--in one word--quick!"

Sleeve-links! and from _her_! A present to be valued and cherished
more than life itself. He could hardly believe his senses. Far too
bewildered to solve the knotty point of cipher _versus_ monogram, he
muttered some incoherent syllables, and only began to recover when he
had stared blankly for a good five minutes at the off-horse's ears,
from the driving-seat of his phaeton.

It took a long time apparently to pick out those sleeve-links. Perhaps
the choicest assortment of such articles remained in the back shop,
for thither Miss Bruce retired; and it is possible she may have
appealed to the proprietor's taste in her selection, since she was
closeted with that gentleman in earnest conference for three-quarters
of an hour. Dick had almost got tired of waiting, when she emerged at
last to thank him for her drive, and to present him, as she affirmed,
with the results of her protracted shopping.

"There is a design on them already," said she, slipping a little box
of card into his hand with her pleasantest smile, "so I could not have
your initials engraved, but I dare say you won't lose them all the
same."

Dick rather thought _not_, hiding the welcome keepsake away in his
waistcoat-pocket, as near his heart as the construction of that
garment would permit; but his day's happiness was over now, for Mrs.
Stanmore had arrived in her brougham to take his companion away for
the rest of the afternoon.

That night, before he went to bed, I think he was fool enough to kiss
the insensible sleeve-links more than once. They were indeed choice
little articles of workmanship, bearing on their surface two quaint
and fanciful designs, representing a brace of Cupids in difficulty,
the one singed by his own torch, the other crying over a broken bow.

At the same hour Maud was enclosing an order for a large sum of money
in a letter which seemed to cost her much study and vexation. Even
Miss Bruce found some difficulty in explaining to a lover that she
valued truth, honour, and fidelity at so many hundred pounds, while
she begged to forward him a cheque for the amount in lieu of the goods
marked "damaged and returned."

CHAPTER X

THE FAIRY QUEEN

I have said that Simon Perkins was a painter