r. Jones Harvey. They came from outlandish
addresses in the ends of the earth, but, in the flesh, Jones Harvey had
been seen by no man, and his secret had been confided to Merton only, to
Logan, and two other school friends. He did good to science by stealth,
and blushed at the idea of being a F.R.S. There was no show of science
about Bude, and nothing exotic, except the singular circumstance that,
however he happened to be dressed, he always wore a ring, or pin, or
sleeve links set with very ugly and muddy looking pearls. From these
ornaments Lord Bude was inseparable; to chaff about presents from dusky
princesses on undiscovered shores he was impervious. Even Merton did not
know the cause of his attachment to these ungainly jewels, or the dark
memory of mysterious loss with which they were associated.

Merton's first care was to visit the divine Althaea, Mrs. Brown-Smith,
and other ladies of his acquaintance. Their cards were deposited at the
claim staked out by Miss McCabe in Berkeley Square, and that young lady
soon 'went everywhere,' and publicly confessed that she 'was having a
real lovely time.' By a little diplomacy Lord Bude was brought
acquainted with Miss McCabe. She consented to overlook his possession of
a coronet; titles were, to this heroine, not marvels (as to some of her
countrywomen and ours), but rather matters of indifference, scarcely even
suggesting hostile prejudice. The observers in society, mothers and
maids, and the chroniclers of fashion, soon perceived that there was at
least a marked _camaraderie_ between _the elegant aristocrat_, hitherto
indifferent to woman, untouched, as was deemed, by love, and the lovely
Child of Freedom. Miss McCabe sat by him while he drove his coach; on
the roof of his drag at Lord's; and of his houseboat at Henley, where she
fainted when the crew of Johns Hopkins University, U. S., was defeated by
a length by Balliol (where Lord Bude had been the favourite pupil of the
great Master). Merton remarked these tokens of friendship with approval.
If Bude could be induced to enter for the great competition, and if he
proved successful, there seemed no reason to suppose that Miss McCabe
would be dissatisfied with the People's choice.

Towards the end of the season, and in Bude's smoking-room, about five in
the July morning after a ball at Eglintoun House, Merton opened his
approaches. He began, cautiously, from talk of moors and forests; he
touched on lochs, he