on fixed
steadily on me, and at last she asked, "Tell me, Graham, of whom does
this young lady remind you."

"Dr. John has had so much to do and think of," said I, seeing how it
must end, "that it never occurred to me as possible that he should
recognise Lucy Snowe."

"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton, as she
stepped across the hearth and kissed me. And I wondered if Mrs. Bretton
knew at whose feet her idolised son had laid his homage.

_IV.--A Cure for First Love_

The Brettons, who had regained some of their fortune, lived in a chateau
outside Villette, a course further warranted by Dr. John's professional
success. In the months, that followed I heard much of Ginevra. He
thought her so fair, so good, so innocent, and yet, though love is
blind, I saw sometimes a subtle ray sped sideways from his eye that half
led me to think his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's naivete was
in part assumed.

One morning my godmother decreed that we should go with Graham to a
concert that night, at which the most advanced pupils of the
conservatoire were to perform. There, in the suite of the British
embassy, was Ginevra Fanshawe, seated by the daughter of an English
peer. I noticed that she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and then
raised a glass to examine his mother, and a minute or two afterwards
laughingly whispered to her neighbour.

"Miss Fanshawe is here," I whispered. "Have you noticed her?"

"Oh yes," was the reply; "and I happen to know her companion, who is a
proud girl, but not in the least insolent; and I doubt whether Ginevra
will have gained ground in her estimation by making a butt of her
neighbours."

"What neighbours?"

"Myself and my mother. As for me, it is very natural; but my mother! I
never saw her ridiculed before. Through me she could not in ten years
have done what in a moment she has done through my mother."

Never before had I seen so much fire and so little sunshine in Dr.
John's blue eyes.

"My mother shall not be ridiculed with my consent, or without my scorn,"
he added. "Mother," said he to her later, "You are better to me than ten
wives." And when we were out in the keen night air, he said to himself:
"Thank you, Miss Fanshawe. I am glad you laughed at my mother. That
sneer did me a world of good."

_V.--Reunion Completed_

One evening in December Dr. Bretton called to take me to the theatre in
place of his mother, who had been prevented by an ar