“I feel so ridiculous,” she said, rising and coming towards me. “X sit here all the evening dressed like this. I’m afraid I don’t act my part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a judge of art, and it is good enough for him. I tell him the most awful lies about what every body has said to me, and what I’ve said to everybody, and how my gowns were ad mired. What do you think of this one ?” For answer I took the privilege of a friend.
“ I’m glad you think well of me,” she said. “ Billy has such a high opinion of you. You will hear some funny tales. I’m glad you know’.”

I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I heard that she had to be fetched from a ball, and was only just in time to touch his lips before Hey were cold. But her friends excused her by saying that the end had come very sud denly. I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her what people were saying, and asked her if I had not bettor tell them the truth.
“I would rather you didn’t,” she an swered. “It seems like making public the secret side of one’s life.”

“But,” I urged, “ they will think ”

She interrupted me. “Does it matter very much what they think ?” Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from the Honorable Mrs Drayton, n6e the elder Miss Lovell.
A BIG STEAL.
