ake you
home. Put your bonnet on: I shall be ready in five minutes when I've
washed my hands."

Dick's face fell. He had counted on a couple more hours at least.
Women, when they are really disappointed, rarely show it, and perhaps
he felt a little hurt to observe how readily, and with what apparent
goodwill, Miss Algernon resumed her out-of-doors attire. He felt
hardly sure of his ground yet, or he might have begun to sulk in
earnest. No bad plan either, for such little misunderstandings
bring on explanations, reconciliations, declarations, all sorts of
vexations, every day!

Ladies are stanch believers in luck, and leave much to chance with a
devout faith that it will serve them at their need. I imagine Nina
thought it quite in the natural course of events that a dirty boy
should enter the room at this juncture and deliver a note to Simon,
which called forth all his energies and sympathies in a moment. The
note, folded in a hurry, written with a pencil, was from a brother
artist, and ran thus--

Dear Simon, "Come and see me if you _can_. On my back! Two doctors.
Not going to be rubbed out, but beastly seedy all the same."

"When was he taken ill? Who's attending him? Anybody taking care of
him? What o'clock is it now? Tell him I'll be there in five minutes."
Simon delivered himself of these sentences in a breath, and then
glanced from Nina to Dick Stanmore.

"I dare say you wouldn't mind," said he. "I _must_ go to this poor
fellow, and if I find him very ill I may be detained till evening. If
you've time, Stanmore, could you see Miss Algernon as far as the boat?
She'll do very well then, but we don't like her to be wandering about
London by herself."

It is possible this idea may have suggested itself to the persons most
concerned, for all that they seemed so supremely unconscious, and as
if the arrangement, though a sensible one and convenient, no doubt,
were a matter of perfect indifference to themselves.

Dick "would be delighted," of course; though he tried not to look so;
and Nina "couldn't think of giving Mr. Stanmore so much trouble."
Nevertheless, within ten minutes the two were turning into Oxford
Street in a hansom cab; and although they said very little, being
indeed in a vehicle which jolted, swung, and rattled inordinately, I
have not the least doubt they enjoyed their drive.

They enjoyed the river steamer too, which seems equally strange,
with its narrow deck, its tangible smoke, its jerks an