said a voice.

Mr. Heatherbloom started; his hand tightened on the back of a chair;
from where he stood he could see but the rim of a wonderful hat. He
gazed at a few waving roses, fitting notes of color as it were, for the
lovely face behind, concealed from him by the curtain.

The elderly lady answered; Mr. Heatherbloom heard a Prince Someone's
name mentioned; then the roses were whisked back; the voice--musical as
silver bells--receded, and the front door closed. Mr. Heatherbloom gazed
around him--at the furnishings in the room--she who stood before him. He
seemed bewildered.

"And now as to your wages," said a voice--not silver bells!--sharply.

"I hardly think I should prove suitable--" he began in somewhat
panic-stricken tones, when--

"Nonsense!" The word, or the energy imparted to it, appeared to crush
for the moment further opposition on his part; his faculties became
concentrated on a sound without, of a big car gathering headway in front
of the door. Mr. Heatherbloom listened; perhaps he would have liked to
retreat then and there from that house; but it was too late! Fate had
precipitated him here. A mad tragic jest! He did not catch the amount
of his proposed stipend that was mentioned; he even forgot for the
moment he was hungry. He could no longer hear the car. It had gone; but,
it would return. Return! And then--? His head whirled at the thought.

CHAPTER III

AN ENCOUNTER

Mr. Heatherbloom, a few days later, sat one morning in Central Park. His
canine charges were tied to the bench and while they chafed at restraint
and tried vainly to get away and chase squirrels, he scrutinized one of
the pages of a newspaper some person had left there. What the young man
read seemed to give him no great pleasure. He put down the paper; then
picked it up again and regarded a snap-shot illustration occupying a
conspicuous position on the society page.

"Prince Boris Strogareff, riding in the park," the picture was labeled.
The newspaper photographer had caught for his sensational sheet an
excellent likeness of a foreign visitor in whom New York was at the time
greatly interested. A picturesque personality--the prince--half
distinguished gentleman, half bold brigand in appearance, was depicted
on a superb bay, and looked every inch a horseman. Mr. Heatherbloom
continued to stare at the likeness; the features, dark, rather
wild-looking, as if a trace of his ancient Tartar ancestry had survived
the cult