. I do not
in the least want to be in love with you,--but I do want
to sit near you, and listen to you, and look at you, and
to know that the whole air around is impregnated by the
mysterious odour of your presence. When one is thoroughly
satisfied with a woman there comes a scent as of sweet
flowers, which does not reach the senses of those whose
feelings are not so awakened.

And now for my news! I suppose that G. T. will in a
tremendously short period become Mistress F. H. 'A long
day, my Lord.' But, if you are to be hung, better be hung
at once. Pere Tringle has not consented,--has done just
the reverse,--has turned me out of his house, morally.
That is, out of his London house. He asked of my 'house
and my home,' as they did of Allan-a-Dale.

Queen's Gate and Glenbogie stand fair on the hill.
"My home," quoth bold Houston, "shows gallanter still.
'Tis the garret up three pair--"

Then he told me roughly to get me gone; but 'I had laughed
on the lass with my bonny black eye.' So the next day I
got an invite to Glenbogie, and at the appropriate time in
August,

She'll go to the mountains to hear a love tale,
And the youth--

it will be told by is to be your poor unfortunate coz,
Frank Houston. Who's going to whimper? Haven't I known
all along what was to come? It has not been my lot in
life to see a flower and pick it because I love it. But
a good head of cabbage when you're hungry is wholesome
food.--Your loving cousin, but not loving as he oughtn't
to love,

FRANK HOUSTON.

I shall still make a dash for the Tyrol when this episode
at Glenbogie is over.

CHAPTER XV.

AYALA WITH HER FRIENDS.

Some few days after Lady Tringle had been at Kingsbury Crescent,
two visitors, who knew little or nothing of each other, came to see
Ayala. One was a lady and the other a gentleman, and the lady came
first. The gentleman, however, arrived before the lady had gone. Mrs.
Dosett was present while the lady remained; but when the gentleman
came she was invited to leave him alone with her niece,--as shall be
told.

The lady was the Marchesa Baldoni. Can the reader go so far back as
to remember the Marchesa Baldoni? It was she who rather instigated
Ayala to be naughty to the Tringles in Rome, and would have Ayala
at her parties when she did not want the Tringles. The Marchesa was
herself an Engl