D'Arcy reappeared with it on his head; the moment he saw Mrs. Arnaud, he took it off again and bowed. 'I beg a thousand pardons, Mrs. Arnaud, for entering the house in this manner, but I fancy that you have had some new convenience erected in the hall since this morning, with the existence of which I was unacquainted. I am aware somehow of the presence of a foreign substance.'

A nice smiling slight man, very pleasant to look at indeed, with a manner which set them all three laughing; he bowed again and passed on. Immediately afterwards Rachel and George Drummond came in, and the whole house was in a bustle. She, the maid, the footman, and Rachel, were upstairs and down. It was eleven o'clock before she, being then at the top of the house, asked the maid (as pleasant a little

maid as need be) whether she knew if her supper was ready.

said.

'Mrs. Rachel had got it ready,' she

'Well, then, I shall go to it,' she said, adding to herself, 'She will not come to night now. I hope she will to-morrow.'

She went down slowly to her own little back parlour, approached the fireplace, and then suddenly cried out loud, Good gracious have mercy upon us!'

6

CHAPTER VI.

HELOISE.

SITTING in Mrs. Arnaud's own chair, with open work-box beside her, and her bonnet off, looking exactly as if she had been sitting there habitually for the last ten years, was the most lovely and beautifully dressed little French brunette she had ever seen. She simply took Mrs. Arnaud's breath away, and if she had faded away at once Mrs. Arnaud would have taken her to be a hallucination of her own brain, produced by over excitement, and taken medical advice. But she was perfectly real, when she heard Mrs. Arnaud's exclamation she looked up and came towards her, sewing briskly. She put her work behind her, kissed Mrs. Arnaud on both

cheeks, and then stood before her laughing with her eyes and mouth (what teeth,' thought Mrs. Arnaud), but making no sound whatever. She was real enough.

Mrs. Arnaud repeated, Why, good

gracious, goodness me!'

The beautiful little creature began nodding her head now, and smiling instead of laughing. Mrs. Arnaud found it necessary to speak in spite of her delighted surprise : 'Why, my love, you must be Heloise, and dumb?'

are you

It very soon appeared she was not; from between her pearly teeth came a babbling flow of the most perfect English, with just such a slight soupçon of French accent as would be totally unproduceable in English by a far cleverer pen than this can pretend to be, and with no imitation of which shall we trouble the reader. She began:

'Yes, aunt,' she said, 'it is Heloise, your little housekeeper and assistant. Ah! but you have my father's eyes, though, and I should love you for that if for nothing else. We will be happy in this pretty little parlour, will we not?' And much more in the same pleasant way, before Mrs. Arnaud could get in a word at all.

'How did you get into the house, my dear?' she said at last.

'Chemin de fer du Nord, and then the packet-boat, and that you will understand was a sad thing; not that I was sick, aunt, but that the others were lamentably so. And in my opinion, those who are sick at sea should declare themselves at the customhouse, and be put in a separate cabin. Well, then, next the Douane, where I had nothing to declare; then the South-Eastern Railway to Victoria, and then the cab here. Then I