peak to some guests.

"Indulging in a little bout of sentiment again with this young
fiddler, Nada?" he inquired in sneering tones. "Telling him how
delighted you were with his playing, eh? What need is there to thank
these hired artists? They are well paid, generally overpaid, for what
they do."

Usually the Princess endured the insults and coarse remarks of her
truculent brother with disdainful indifference. To-night she was a
little unstrung. Like her mother, she was a passionate lover of
music--what the French describe as _un amateur_. The lovely voices of
the two _prime donne_, the exquisite strains of the violin, had raised
her to an exalted mood, in which she only wanted to think of things
pure and beautiful.

The Prince's coarse words and sneering accents jarred upon her
sensibilities, and aroused in her a spirit of antagonism. She darted
at him an angry and contemptuous glance.

"You are more than usually offensive to-night, Boris. I suppose you
have been indulging in your favourite habit of drinking too much
champagne."

The shaft went home. It was well known in his family and amongst his
friends that the Prince, in spite of the obligations of his high
position, was far from abstemious, and had caused some scandal as a
consequence of his unfortunate proclivities.

A dull flush spread over his hard, handsome face. "You little
spitfire!" he growled savagely. "I wonder when you will be tamed.
Never, so long as our mother refrains from keeping a tighter rein over
you."

For answer, the young Princess swept scornfully away from him, in her
pearls and shimmering white satin, a dream of loveliness to everybody
except her churlish brother.

Nello hastened home to his frugal supper in Dean Street, prepared for
him by the capable hands of his little sister. A roll of notes had
been handed to him on his departure by a slim young man, the secretary
of the Princess. In spite of his natural grief at the death of the
poor old Papa, he was jubilant, over his good luck. In two evenings he
had made a small fortune. He handed over the precious roll of notes
to Anita.

"They are safe in your keeping, my dear one. But you must buy yourself
some good clothes. Heaven knows we have starved and gone shabby long
enough. But I cannot believe in it yet. It is still a dream."

Poor Papa Peron was lying upstairs. Nello to-night would sleep in an
improvised bed made up on the shabby sofa in the sitting-room. Anita,
with her u