have half a dozen to dinner every
day, if I might choose 'em. I couldn't stand stupid ones. But I say,
his temper isn't improved by all this dying: he is in an awful rage with
you; and what for?"

"O uncle! what for? Because I'm the vilest of women!"

"Vilest of fiddlesticks! It's his fault, not yours. Shouldn't have died.
It's always a dangerous experiment."

"I shall die if he will not forgive me. He keeps away from me and from
his child."

"I'll tell you. He heard, in Gravesend, your banns had been cried: that
has moved the peevish fellow's bile."

"It was done without my consent. Papa will tell you so; and, O uncle,
if you knew the arts, the forged letter in my darling's hand, the way he
wrought on me! O villain! villain! Uncle, forgive your poor silly niece,
that the world is too wicked and too clever for her to live in."

"Because you are too good and innocent," said Uncle Philip. "There,
don't you be down-hearted. I'll soon bring you two together again--a
couple of ninnies. I'll tell you what is the first thing: you must come
and live with me. Come at once, bag and baggage. He won't show here, the
sulky brute."

Philip Staines had a large house in Cavendish Square, a crusty old
patient, like himself, had left him. It was his humor to live in a
corner of this mansion, though the whole was capitally furnished by his
judicious purchases at auctions.

He gave Rosa and her boy and his nurse the entire first floor, and told
her she was there for life. "Look here," said he, "this last affair has
opened my eyes. Such women as you are the sweeteners of existence. You
leave my roof no more. Your husband will make the same discovery. Let
him run about, and be miserable a bit. He will have to come to book."

She shook her head sadly.

"My Christopher will never say a harsh word to me. All the worse for me.
He will quietly abandon a creature so inferior to him."

"Stuff!"

Now, she was always running to the window, in hope that Christopher
would call on his uncle, and that she might see him; and one day she
gave a scream so eloquent, Philip knew what it meant. "Get you behind
that screen, you and your boy," said he, "and be as still as mice. Stop!
give me that letter the scoundrel forged, and the ring."

This was hardly done, and Rosa out of sight, and trembling from head
to foot, when Christopher was announced. Philip received him very
affectionately, but wasted no time.

"Been to Kent Villa yet?"

"No,"