. "My tastes are not
their tastes. I don't suppose you would care to read what I want to
hear!"

"Well," she said cheerily, "try me. Make your choice."

"Very well, the _Sporting and Dramatic_," he said. "Read every word of
that. And about that theatrical divorce case. And every word of that
too. Don't you skip, and cheat me."

She laughed and settled herself down to amuse him. And he listened
contentedly.

"That is something like literature," he said once or twice. "I can
understand papers of that sort going like wild-fire."

When he was tired of being read to, she talked to him in a manner that
would have astonished the Disagreeable Man: not of books, nor learning,
but of people she had met and of Places she had seen; and there was fun
in everything she said. She knew London well, and she could tell him
about the Jewish and the Chinese quarters, and about her adventures in
company with a man who took her here, there, and everywhere.

She made him some tea, and she cheered the poor fellow as he had not
been cheered for months.

"You're just a little brick," he said, when she was leaving. Then once
more he added eagerly:

"And you're not to be paid, are you?"

"Not a single _sou_!" she laughed. "What a strange idea of yours!"

"You are not offended?" he said anxiously. "But you can't think what a
difference it makes to me. You are not offended?"

"Not in the least!" she answered. "I know quite well how you mean it.
You want a little kindness with nothing at the back of it. Now,
good-bye!"

He called her when she was outside the door.

"I say, will you come again soon?"

"Yes, I will come to-morrow."

"Do you know you've been a little brick. I hope I haven't tired you.
You are only a bit of a thing yourself. But, by Jove, you know how to
put a fellow in a good temper!"

When Mrs. Reffold went down to _table-d'hote_ that night, she met
Bernardine on the stairs, and stopped to speak with her.

"We've had a splendid afternoon," she said; "and we've arranged to go
again to-morrow at the same time. Such a pity you don't come! Oh, by
the way, thank you for going to see my husband. I hope he did not tire
you. He is a little querulous, I think. He so enjoyed your visit. Poor
fellow! it is sad to see him so ill, isn't it?"

CHAPTER IX.

BERNARDINE PREACHES.

AFTER this, scarcely a day passed but Bernardine went to see Mr. Reffold.
The most inexperienced eye could have known that he was becoming rapi