thday. By-and-by I am going along to Bond Street
to buy some little thing for her."

"Then she allows you to make her presents?" Brand said, somewhat coldly.

"She and I are like brother and sister now," said the pale, deformed
lad, without hesitation. "If I were ill, I think she would be glad to
come and look after me."

"You have already plenty of sisters who would do that.'"

"By-the-way, they are coming to town next week with my mother. You must
come and dine with us some night, if you are not afraid to face the
chatter of such a lot of girls."

"Have they seen Miss Lind?"

"No, not yet."

"And how will you explain your latest craze to them, Evelyn? They are
very nice girls indeed, you know; but--but--when they set full cry on
you--I suppose some day I shall have to send them a copy of a newspaper
from abroad, with this kind of thing in it: '_Compeared yesterday before
the Correctional Tribunal, Earnest Francis D'Agincourt, Baron Evelyn,
charged with having in his possession two canisters of an explosive
compound and fourteen empty missiles. Further, among the correspondence
of the accused was found--_'"

"'_A letter from an Englishman named Brand_,'" continued Lord Evelyn, as
he rose and went to the window, "'_apparently written under the
influence of nightmare._' Come, Brand, I see the carriage is below. Will
you drive with me to the jeweller's?"

"Certainly," said his friend; and at this moment the carriage was
announced. "I suppose it wouldn't do for me to buy the thing? You know I
have more money to spend on trinkets than you have."

They were very intimate friends indeed. Lord Evelyn only said, with a
smile,

"I am afraid Natalie wouldn't like it."

But this choosing of a birthday present was a terrible business. The
jeweller was as other jewellers: his designs were mostly limited to the
representation of two objects--a butterfly for a woman, and a horseshoe
for a man. At last Brand, who had been walking about from time to time,
espied, in a distant case, an object which instantly attracted his
attention. It was a flat piece of wood or board, covered with blue
velvet; and on this had been twined an unknown number of yards of the
beautiful thread-like gold chain common to the jewellers' shop-windows
in Venice.

"Here you are, Evelyn," Brand said at once. "Why not buy a lot of this
thin chain, and let her make it into any sort of decoration that she
chooses?"

"It is an ignominious way out of