d the relations between the respectable stockbroker and
the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana
wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove
with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the
Captain and his _protege_; these two penniless Bohemians were so much
more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont to
sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing Mr. Sheldon's old port in the
long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of
desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget
paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories
of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he
had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that
reverential awe which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone to
feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth
and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of
degradation. Nor could Charlotte withhold her admiration from the man
whose tone was so infinitely superior to that of all the other men she
had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best
friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him
when his dear friend had withheld the temporary accommodation of a
five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend's wife had
refused the loan of "a little silver."

Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his
friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small
offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine
perusal, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon
evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of "paper." He met the
two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and
walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate
by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for
the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine
society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure
hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend.

And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his
company? Alas, no! The time had been, and only within a few months,
when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied
that the most exqu