pected
deliverance. Certain portions of the auditorium were portioned off into
squares, which did duty for private boxes, and into the nearest of these
there now entered a party of ladies and children, in whom he recognised
some intimate friends. To advance towards them and beg the use of a
vacant chair was the work of a moment, when he proceeded to pour the
story of his woes into the ear of the young lady by his side. She was
fair and pretty, charmingly dressed, and almost as supercilious in
expression as he was himself.

"Little wretch! How impossible of her!" she ejaculated, and bent
forward to examine the wretch forthwith.

Viva had climbed on the empty seat, and was craning her little face to
right and left to discover where the deserter had fled. With her great
blue eyes and rose-leaf complexion set in a frame of golden hair, she
looked like an angel from heaven, or one of the sweet-faced cherubs who
float in space at the top of Christmas cards and valentines.

But it was not on Viva that the young lady's attention was riveted, but
upon the figure by her side--Mamzelle Paddy in all the glory of a French
hat, wearing the very biggest hair-ribbon in her possession, in honour
of the occasion. At sight of the profile the young lady started and
cried, "It is! It must be!" Then she dodged backwards, saw the hat,
and became filled with doubt. "No, it can't be! It's much too smart!"

Finally Pixie turned round to apostrophise Miss Viva, who was in the act
of striding the back of her chair, and immediately a flash of
recognition leapt from eye to eye. The French hat nodded until the
feathers fairly quivered with the strain, and the face beneath became a
beam of delight, in which eyes disappeared and the parted lips stretched
back to a surprising distance. The fair-haired young lady had more
respect to appearance in her recognition, but all the same she grew
quite pink with pleasure, and cried eagerly--

"It's my dearest friend! We were at school together, but she has been
in Paris finishing her education, and I have not heard from her since
her return. I must speak to her in the interval--I really must! You
can't think what a fascinating little creature she is when you get to
know her."

"Ah, really! She looks distinctly--er--out of the common," drawled the
supercilious man lazily. "Rather interesting-looking woman, the
children's mother. Some relation of your friend, I suppose?"

"Oh, I suppose s