em. He seemed to have heard somewhere that artists were the very devil
among women.

At last the weary time of waiting had worn itself out, somehow, and,
after a final polishing before his glass, he went down, and found his
right corridor, and knocked at the door. A pleasant voice bade him
enter, and, hat and gloves in hand, he went in.

As he had imagined, both ladies were present. He had not been prepared,
however, for the fact that it was the American who played the part of
hostess. It was she who received him, and invited him to sit down, and
generally made him free of the apartment. When he shook hands with Lady
Cressage, there was somehow an effect of the incidental in the ceremony,
as if she were also a guest.

Nothing could have been simpler or more pleasing than the little visit
turned out to be. Miss Madden had suddenly grown tired of the snowless
and dripping English winter, and had as promptly decided to come to
Switzerland, where the drifts ought to be high enough, and the frosts
searching enough, in all conscience. They had selected Territet, because
it was familiar to her, and because it was on the way to Martigny and
Brieg, and she had had a notion of crossing either the Simplon or the
St. Bernard in winter. As she found now, the St. Bernard was quite
impracticable, but admittedly a post road was kept open over the
Simplon. It was said now that she would not be allowed to proceed by
this, but it often happened that she did the things that she was not
allowed to do. The hotel-people at both Brieg and Berisal had written
refusing to let their horses attempt the Simplon journey, and they were
of course quite within their rights, but there were other horses in
Switzerland. One surely could buy horses--and so on.

Thorpe also had his turn at autobiography. He told rather whimsically
of his three months' experiences at the tail of the juvenile whirligigs,
and his auditors listened to them with mild smiles. He ventured upon
numerous glowing parentheses about Julia, and they at least did not say
that they did not want to know her. They heard with politeness, too,
what he could contrive to drag in about his artist-nephew, and said it
must be very pleasant for him to have such nice company. At least Miss
Madden said this: her companion, as he thought it over afterward, seemed
hardly to have said anything at all. She answered the few remarks which
he found it possible to direct to her, but the responses took no