rcumstance might occasion.

Onslow's note concluded with his "thanks for Mr. Jekyl's kindness on the
preceding evening," and expressing a wish to know "at what hour Mr. J.
would receive a visit from him."

Within a very few minutes after the billet was despatched, a servant
announced Mr. Albert Jekyl; and that young gentleman, in the glory of a
very magnificent brocade dressing-gown, and a Greek cap, with slippers
of black velvet embroidered in gold, entered the room.

Onslow, himself a distinguished member of that modern school of dandyism
whose pride lies in studs and shirt-pins, in watch-chains, rings, and
jewelled canes, was struck by the costly elegance of his visitor's
toilette. The opal buttons at his wrists; the single diamond, of great
size and brilliancy, on his finger; even the massive amber mouthpiece
of the splendid meerschaum he carried in his hand, were all evidences of
the most expensive tastes. "Could this by possibility be the man he had
seen at supper?" was the question he at once asked himself; but there
was no time to discuss the point, as Jekyl, in a voice almost girlish in
its softness, said,

"I could not help coming at once to thank you, Mr. Onslow, for your
polite note, and say how gratified I feel at making your acquaintance.
Maynard often spoke of you to me; and I confess I was twenty times a day
tempted to introduce myself."

"Maynard Sir Horace Maynard!" cried Onslow, with a slight flush, half
pleasure, half surprise, for the baronet was the leader of the set
George belonged to, a man of great fortune, ancient family, the most
successful on the English Turf, and the envy of every young fellow about
town. "Do you know Maynard?"

"Oh, very well indeed," lisped Jekyl; "and like him much."

Onslow could not help a stare at the man who, with perfect coolness
and such an air of patronage, professed his opinion of the most
distinguished fashionable of the day.

"He has a very pretty taste in equipage," continued Jekyl, "but never
could attain to the slightest knowledge of a dinner."

Onslow was thunderstruck. Maynard, whose entertainments were the triumph
of the Clarendon, thus criticised by the man he had seen supping like a
mouse on a morsel of mouldy cheese!

"Talking of dinners, by the way," said Jekyl, "what became of
Merewater?"

"Lord Merewater? he was in waiting when we left England."

"A very tidy cook he used to have, a Spaniard called Jose, a perfect
hand at all the Prove