s coronet was pasteboard,
and his shirt studs stolen. Mr. John Catt distinguished himself on his
arrival by loud calls for bottled beer, the wearing of his hat in the
sitting-room, and by the tobacco-fumes which he liberally diffused in
his wake.

When the little Vicomte made his accustomed appearance in the
drawing-room, after the table d'hote, he offered the Cockayne ladies his
profoundest bows, and was most reverential in his attitude to Mr.
Cockayne, who on his side was red and brusque. As neither Mr. nor Mrs.
Cockayne could speak a French word, and Mr. John Catt was not in a
position to help them, and was, moreover, inclined to the most
unfavourable conclusions on the French nobleman, the presentations were
on the English side of the most awkward description. The demoiselles
Cockayne "fell a giggling" to cover their confusion; and the party would
have made a ridiculous figure before all the boarders, had not the
Reverend Horace Mohun covered them with his blandness.

Mr. John Catt was not well-mannered, but he was good-hearted and
stout-hearted. He was one of those rough young gentlemen who pride
themselves upon "having no nonsense about them." He was downright in all
things, even in love-making. He took, therefore, a very early
opportunity of asking his betrothed "what this all meant about Monsieur
de Gars?" and of observing, "She had only to say the word, and he was
ready to go."

This was very brutal, and it is not in the least to be wondered at that
the young lady resented it.

I am, as the reader will have perceived, only touching now and then upon
the histories of the people who passed through Mrs. Rowe's highly
respectable establishment while I was in the habit of putting up there.
This John Catt was told he was very cruel, and that he might go; Mrs.
Cockayne resolutely refused to give up the delights and advantages of
the society of the Vicomte de Gars; the foolish girl was--well, just as
foolish as her mamma; and finally, in a storm that shook the
boarding-house almost to its respectable foundations, the Cockayne
party broke up--not before the Vicomte and Miss Theodosia Cockayne had
had an explanation in the conservatory, and Mrs. Cockayne had invited
"his lordship" to London.

I shall pick up the threads of all this presently.

CHAPTER XI.

MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLERS.

Poor girl! she was timid, frightened. I saw at once that the man with
whom she was, and who packed her feet up so carefully