the latter, was a not
unusual one in the neighbourhood; and coupled with the proximity of a
cold joint of beef, his seat at the head of the table, and a carving
knife and fork grasped in his hands, established clearly the fact of
his position in the household, which a somewhat weak physiognomy might
otherwise have led the casual observer to doubt. Opposite him, at the
other end of the table, sat his wife, Mrs. Barnes, a somewhat voluminous
lady with a high colour, a black satin frock, and many ornaments. On
her left the son of the house, eighteen years old, of moderate stature,
somewhat pimply, with the fashion of the moment reflected in his pink
tie with white spots, drawn through a gold ring, and curving outwards to
seek obscurity underneath a dazzling waistcoat. A white tube-rose in
his buttonhole might have been intended as a sort of compliment to the
occasion, or an indication of his intention to take a walk after supper
in the fashionable purlieus of the neighbourhood. Facing him sat his
sister--a fluffy-haired, blue-eyed young lady, pretty in her way, but
chiefly noticeable for a peculiar sort of self-consciousness blended
with self-satisfaction, and possessed only at a certain period in their
lives by young ladies of her age. It was almost the air of the cat in
whose interior reposes the missing canary, except that in this instance
the canary obviously existed in the person of the young man who sat at
her side, introduced formally to the household for the first time. That
young man's name was--at the moment--Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald.

It seems idle to attempt any description of a person who, in the past,
had secured a certain amount of fame under a varying personality; and
who, in the future, was to become more than ever notorious under a far
less aristocratic pseudonym than that by which he was at present known
to the inhabitants of Daisy Villa. There are photographs of him in New
York and Paris, St. Petersburg and Chicago, Vienna and Cape Town, but
there are no two pictures which present to the casual observer the
slightest likeness to one another. To allude to him by the name under
which he had won some part, at least, of the affections of Miss Maud
Barnes, Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald, as he sat there, a suitor on probation
for her hand, was a young man of modest and genteel appearance. He wore
a blue serge suit--a little underdressed for the occasion, perhaps; but
his tie and collar were neat; his gold-rimmed spect