ry slightly-grizzled wig would
have suited his general appearance better. The _perruquier_--an artist
in his way--to whom he had applied considered picturesque effect an
object not to be overlooked; and Mr. Reuben Dare was accordingly a
rather too strikingly picturesque individual to be anything but
theatrical in air.

He showed Mrs. Vane the house, bowed politely, and then passed down the
street.

"She's come to enquire about me--I am sure of that," he said. "I'd
better change my lodgings as quick as possible. I'll leave them
to-morrow--to-night would look suspicious, maybe: or should I leave them
now, and never go back?"

He was half inclined to adopt this course; but he was deterred by the
remembrance of a pocket-book containing money which he had left locked
up in his portmanteau. He could not well dispense with it; and neither
Mrs. Vane nor anybody else could do him any harm, he thought, if he
stayed for twenty-four hours longer at Mrs. Gunn's. But he trusted a
little too much to the uncertainties of fate.

"Well, Sabina," said Mrs. Vane coolly, as, with a general air of
bewilderment, that young person appeared before her in Mrs. Gunn's best
parlor, "I suppose that you hardly expected to see me here?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't. I thought you was quite too much of an invalid to
leave home."

"It is rather an effort," said Flossy drily, "especially considering the
neighborhood in which you live."

"It ain't country certainly," returned Sabina; "but it's respectable."

"Ah, like yourself!" said Mrs. Vane. "That was the reason you came to
it, I suppose. Don't look angry, Sabina--I was only meaning to make a
little joke. But jokes are a mistake with most people. I came to answer
your letter in person and to have a talk with you."

"Won't you have anything to eat, ma'am? We've just finished dinner; but,
if there's anything we can get"--Sabina was evidently inclined to be
obsequious--"an egg, or a chop, or a cup of tea----"

"No, I don't want anything. Who is this Mr. Reuben Dare?"

"That's what I want to know, ma'am!"

"And who is this Miss West?"--Sabina shook her head.

"She calls him her father--I'm sure of that."

"Where does she come from? Where was she brought up?"

"Couldn't say, ma'am. Jenkins says that Miss West used to act at the
Frivolity Theatre--he's seen her there about two years ago. Mr. Lepel
took her up, as far as he can make out, about a year and a half
ago--soon after he settled in Londo