ful orange-coloured roses known
by the prosaic name of 'William Allan Richardson.'

If Mr. Blackthorne grew angry as he watched Sigismund Zaluski, he grew
doubly angry as he watched Gertrude Morley. He said to himself that it
was intolerable that such a girl should fall a prey to a vain, shallow,
unprincipled foreigner, and in a few minutes he had painted such a dark
picture of poor Sigismund that my strength increased tenfold.

"Mr. Blackthorne," said Mrs. Courtenay, "would you take Mrs.
Milton-Cleave to have an ice?"

Now Mrs. Milton-Cleave had always been one of the curate's great friends.
She was a very pleasant, talkative woman of six-and-thirty, and a general
favourite. Her popularity was well deserved, for she was always ready to
do a kind action, and often went out of her way to help people who had
not the slightest claim upon her. There was, however, no repose about
Mrs. Milton-Cleave, and an acute observer would have discovered that her
universal readiness to help was caused to some extent by her good heart,
but in a very large degree by her restless and over-active brain. Her
sphere was scarcely large enough for her, she would have made an
excellent head of an orphan asylum or manager of some large institution,
but her quiet country life offered far too narrow a field for her energy.

"It is really quite a treat to watch Mr. Zaluski's play," she remarked as
they walked to the refreshment tent at the other end of the lawn.
"Certainly foreigners know how to move much better than we do: our best
players look awkward beside them."

"Do you think so?" said Mr. Blackthorne. "I am afraid I am full of
prejudice, and consider that no one can equal a true-born Briton."

"And I quite agree with you in the main," said Mrs. Milton-Cleave.
"Though I confess that it is rather refreshing to have a little variety."

The curate was silent, but his silence merely covered his absorption in
me, and I began to exercise a faint influence through his mind on the
mind of his companion. This caused her at length to say:

"I don't think you quite like Mr. Zaluski. Do you know much about him?"

"I have met him several times this summer," said the curate, in the tone
of one who could have said much more if he would.

The less satisfying his replies, the more Mrs. Milton-Cleave's curiosity
grew.

"Now, tell me candidly," she said at length. "Is there not some mystery
about our new neighbour? Is he quite what he seems t