added, with a mischievous look, "I will ask you to remain with us, as
Mr. Wilding will be obliged to see you here. Lillie, you have the
gentleman's card. It seems awkward to wait for the formality of Henry's
introduction. Will you have the kindness to make us acquainted?"

Miss Vila gravely performed the ceremony.

"Your cousin is fortunate in finding friends in town, Mrs. Martindale,"
said Buckingham; "for a collegian coming here freshly, especially one in
a special course, is apt to be slow in breaking through the hedge which
divides the college from the town."

"Yes, he is quite fortunate," said his cousin. "I exercise an influence
over him. You know we exercise an influence over students, don't you?"

Buckingham laughed.

"I supposed that was what the town was for."

"When they are away from home and parents and all those refining
influences, we serve as substitutes. Henry is away, not so much from his
parents, who are dead, as from the lady to whom he is engaged. That is
why I feel bound to exercise an influence over him." Mrs. Martindale
made this explanation with a serious air, but Buckingham, whose eye
never stayed far from Miss Vila, detected that young lady casting a
reproachful, not to say indignant, glance at the speaker. Miss Vila,
indeed, made a motion as if to leave, but, with another quick blush, as
if she had betrayed a secret thought, settled again into her chair. To
tell the secret, she had a sudden misgiving that her reckless friend
might take it into her head to make ingenuous revelations concerning
her.

"I hope he finds his work agreeable," said Buckingham; not that he cared
a straw, but by way of keeping up his end of the conversation.

"Oh, I have no doubt he does, or he would come to see us oftener. I
mean," she explained hurriedly, "he would stay in his room less."

"He certainly takes his time now in coming down," thought the visitor.
There was, however, a movement in the passage, and Mrs. Martindale
darted out. She came back immediately, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"I am sorry," she faltered, "but I find I am mistaken. He is not in."

"I am afraid you are not exerting enough influence, Mrs. Martindale,"
said Buckingham pleasantly, but somewhat perplexed in his mind at the
length of time it had taken to make this discovery, and at the
hallucination which had seemed to possess his cousin's mind when she
announced him as about to appear. As for Miss Vila, she persistently
refuse