heir old clothes!"
thought Kitty.

"Well, what can I do for you, Lady Kitty?" he resumed, smiling.

"I wanted your advice," said Kitty--not altogether sure, now that he was
there beside her, that she did want it.

"About your literary work?"

She threw him a quick glance.

"Do you know? How do you know? I have been writing a book!"

"So I imagined--"

"And--and--" She broke now into eagerness, bending forward, "I want you
to help me get it published. It is a deadly secret. Nobody knows--"

"Not even William?"

"No one," she repeated. "And I can't tell you about it, or show you a
line of it, unless you vow and swear to me--"

"Oh! I swear," said Darrell, tranquilly--"I swear."

Kitty looked at him doubtfully a moment--then resumed:

"I have written it at all sorts of times--when William was away--in the
middle of the night--out in the woods. <i>Nobody</i> knows. You see"--her
little fingers plucked at the moss--"I have a good many advantages. If
people want 'Society' with a big S, I can give it them!"

"Naturally," said Darrell.

"And it always amuses people--doesn't it?"

Kitty clasped her hands round her knees and looked at him with candor.

"Does it?" said Darrell. "It has been done a good deal."

"Oh, of course," said Kitty, impatiently, "mine's not the proper thing.
You don't imagine I should try and write like Thackeray, do you? Mine's
<i>real</i> people--<i>real</i> things that happened--with just the names
altered."

"Ah!" said Darrell, sitting up--"that sounds exciting. Is it libellous?"

"Well, that's just what I want to know," said Kitty, slowly. "Of course,
I've made a kind of story out of it. But you'd have to be a great fool
not to guess. I've put myself in, and--"

"And Ashe?"

Kitty nodded. "All the novels that are written about politics
nowadays--except Dizzy's--are such nonsense, aren't they? I just wanted
to describe--from the inside--how a real statesman"--she threw up her
head proudly--"lives, and what he does."

"Excellent subject," said Darrell. "Well--anybody else?"

Kitty flushed. "You'll see," she said, uncertainly.

Darrell's involuntary smile was hidden by a bunch of honeysuckle at
which he was sniffing. "May I look?" he asked, stretching out a hand for
the sheets.

She pushed them towards him, half unwilling, half eager, and he began to
turn them over. Apparently it had a thread of story--both slender and
extravagant. And on the thread--Hullo!--here was the fan