entleman
with him--a gentleman whom Bessie at first supposed to be his friend
dismounted. But at a second glance she found herself looking at Lord
Lambeth, who was shaking hands with her sister.

"I found him over there," said Willie Woodley, "and I told him you were
here."

And then Lord Lambeth, touching his hat a little, shook hands with
Bessie. "Fancy your being here!" he said. He was blushing and smiling;
he looked very handsome, and he had a kind of splendor that he had not
had in America. Bessie Alden's imagination, as we know, was just then in
exercise; so that the tall young Englishman, as he stood there looking
down at her, had the benefit of it. "He is handsomer and more splendid
than anything I have ever seen," she said to herself. And then she
remembered that he was a marquis, and she thought he looked like a
marquis.

"I say, you know," he cried, "you ought to have let a man know you were
here!"

"I wrote to you an hour ago," said Mrs. Westgate.

"Doesn't all the world know it?" asked Bessie, smiling.

"I assure you I didn't know it!" cried Lord Lambeth. "Upon my honor I
hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley now; had I, Woodley?"

"Well, I think you are rather a humbug," said Willie Woodley.

"You don't believe that--do you, Miss Alden?" asked his lordship. "You
don't believe I'm a humbug, eh?"

"No," said Bessie, "I don't."

"You are too tall to stand up, Lord Lambeth," Mrs. Westgate observed.
"You are only tolerable when you sit down. Be so good as to get a
chair."

He found a chair and placed it sidewise, close to the two ladies. "If I
hadn't met Woodley I should never have found you," he went on. "Should
I, Woodley?"

"Well, I guess not," said the young American.

"Not even with my letter?" asked Mrs. Westgate.

"Ah, well, I haven't got your letter yet; I suppose I shall get it this
evening. It was awfully kind of you to write."

"So I said to Bessie," observed Mrs. Westgate.

"Did she say so, Miss Alden?" Lord Lambeth inquired. "I daresay you have
been here a month."

"We have been here three," said Mrs. Westgate.

"Have you been here three months?" the young man asked again of Bessie.

"It seems a long time," Bessie answered.

"I say, after that you had better not call me a humbug!" cried Lord
Lambeth. "I have only been in town three weeks; but you must have been
hiding away; I haven't seen you anywhere."

"Where should you have seen us--where should we have gone?" asked Mrs.
W