hey must be allowed to come and go exactly as they please if you
wish them to eat out of your hand from time to time; and when the
eminent young critic announced rather suddenly that he must leave early
the next morning the good lady only said that she was sorry, and that
she hoped he would come back soon. Sham lions love to talk about
themselves, and to excite curiosity, but real ones resent questions
about their doings as they would resent a direct insult. Mrs. Rushmore
knew that, too.

She was really sorry to lose him, however, and had counted on his
staying at least a week longer. She liked him herself, and she saw that
Margaret liked him very much; and it was more moral in a nice girl to
like an Englishman than a foreigner, just as it would be still more
moral of her to prefer an American to an Englishman, according to Mrs.
Rushmore's scale of nationalities. Next to what was moral, she was fond
of lions, who are often persons without any morals whatsoever. But
Lushington seemed to fill both requirements. He was a highly moral
lion. She was quite sure that he did not drink, did not gamble, and did
not secretly worship Ashtaroth; and he never told her naughty stories.
Therefore she was very sorry when he was gone.

At the present juncture, however, she was in considerable anxiety about
Margaret. She did not know one note from another, but she had heard all
the greatest singers of the last thirty years, in all the greatest
opera-houses from Bayreuth to New York, and it horrified her to be
obliged to admit that Margaret's singing sounded dreadfully like the
best. The girl meant to sing in opera, and if she could really do it
well it would be quite impossible to hinder her, as she had no means of
support and could not be blamed for refusing to live on charity.
Everything was combining to make an artist of her, for the chances of
winning the suit brought on her behalf were growing as slender as the
seven lean kine.

It was characteristic of Margaret that she had kept to herself most of
what Madame Bonanni had told her, but Mrs. Rushmore knew the girl well,
and guessed from her face that there was much more behind. The
appointment at the theatre confirmed this surmise, and when Margaret
telegraphed the next day that she was going to stay in town until the
afternoon, with Madame De Rosa, there was no longer any room for doubt.

As for poor Lushington, Margaret had told him nothing at all, and her
visit to Madame Bonann