and more lovable creature, retaining all her bright humour and frank vivacity, but gradually becoming more softened in character, and more chastened in disposition; I saw her, in my mind's eye, carrying her child in her arms, and murmuring all that pretty baby nonsense which men pretend they despise, but which in their hearts they secretly love to hear, and I built up a veritable château en Espagne of home-happiness as I had never yet known it, but which I now sincerely believed I was destined to enjoy.

Need I say that my hopes were doomed to disappointment, and that I cursed myself for being such a sentimental ass as to imagine they could ever be realized? Honoria was up and about again in no time, and seemed almost, if not quite, cheerfully unconscious of our boy's existence. He, poor mite, was consigned to the care of two nurses-large, beer-consuming women both, and ungrammatical of speech-and when his screams announced that all was not going well with his infant career-that pins were being put in the wrong places, or that windy spasms were the result of overfeeding, Honoria would smile at me and remark blandly:

"There's a savage little brute! Doesn't he roar! Never mind! Perhaps he'll scare away the organgrinders!"

On one of these occasions, when my son's com

plaints were so heartrending that they threatened to lift the very roof off the house by sheer volume of sound, I said:

"Don't

you think you'd better go and see what's the matter, Honoria? It's not quite fair to leave him entirely at the mercy of the nurses!"

"Why not?" she responded composedly. "They understand him-I don't. He's a perfect mystery to me. He screams if I touch him, and rolls right over on his back and makes the most horrible faces at me when I look at him. Nurse says I hold him wrong— it seems to me impossible to hold him right. He's as soft as putty, and bruises everywhere. Can't lay a finger on him without bruising him black and blue. You try it! I wanted to amuse him yesterday—blew the cab whistle for him as loud as I could, and I thought he would have burst with howling. We don't take to each other a bit-isn't it funny? He doesn't want me, and I don't want him-we're better apart, really!"

"Honoria," I said (we were at breakfast, and I rose from the table with an angry movement), "you are heartless! You speak cruelly and slightingly of the poor child. You don't deserve to be a mother!"

She laughed good-humouredly.

"You're right, Willie; that's one for you! I don't deserve to be, and I didn't want to be. Oh, what a

bear you look! Be off to the City, for goodness' sake; don't stop scowling there! Would you like to take baby out for once? I'll fetch him for you--he'll be such a nice quiet companion for you down town!"

I beat a hasty retreat; I had no words wherewith to answer her, but I released my pent-up wrath by banging the street door as I went out with a violence that I freely admit was femininely pettish and unworthy of man. And I went down to my office in a very angry mood, and my anger was not lessened when, turning sharp round a corner, I ran up against the "boy" with the moustaches.

"So glad to meet you," he said with his gentlemanly drawl and elegant air. "Hope you're coming to

the moors this year with Mrs. Tribkin?"

I stared at him he looked provokingly cool and comfortable in his white flannels (always white flannels! However, it was a fact that August had just begun)—and then I replied with some frigidity:

"I am not aware that Mrs. Tribkin is going to the moors at all. I believe-indeed I am sure-our-ermy intention is to spend a quiet holiday at the seaside for the benefit of the child's health."

"Oh," murmured the "boy" languidly. "Then I suppose I have made a mistake. Some one told me

she had taken a share in the grouse-shootings this

season-gone halves with Mrs. Stirling, of Glen Ruach, dontcherknow. Quite a big party expected down there on the Twelfth."

"Really," I snarled, for I was getting angrier every minute. "Are you going?"

He looked fatuously surprised.

"Me? Oh, dear no! I'm on the river."

"You're always on the river now, I suppose, aren't you?" I inquired, with a sarcastic grin.

"Always," he replied placidly. "Won't you and Mrs. Tribkin come and see me in my little house-boat? Awfully snug, dontcherknow-moored in capital position. Delighted to see you any time!"

"Thanks, thanks!" and here I strove to snigger at him politely in the usual "society" way. "But we are very much tied at home just now-my son is rather too young to appreciate the pleasures of river-life!"

"Oh, of course!" And for once the "boy" appeared really startled. "It would never do for a-for a little kid, you know. How is he?" This with an air of hypocritical anxiety.

"He is very well and flourishing," I answered proudly. "As fine a child as——”

"Yes-er-no doubt," interrupted Moustaches hurriedly. "And Honoria-Mrs. Tribkin-is awfully devoted, I suppose?"

"Awfully!" I said, fixing my eyes full and sternly

upon his inanely handsome countenance.

absorbed in him-absorbed, heart and soul!"

"She is

"Curious-I mean delightful!" stammered the hateful young humbug. "Well-er-give my kind regards, please, and just mention that I'm on the river!"

As well mention that Queen Anne was dead, I thought scornfully, as I watched him dash over a crossing under the very nose of a plunging cab-horse and disappear on the opposite side. He was a fish, I declared to myself—a fish, not a man! Scrape his gills and cook him for dinner, I muttered deliriously as I went along-scrape his gills and cook him for dinner! This idiotic phrase became fixed in my mind, and repeated itself over and over again in my ears with the most tiresome monotony, whereby it will be easily comprehended that my nerves were very much unstrung and my system upset generally by the feverish mental worry and domestic vexation I was undergoing.

On reaching home that afternoon I found Honoria in high glee. She was lounging in one of those long, comfortable "deck" chairs, which, when properly cushioned, are the most luxurious seats in the world, smoking a cigarette and reading Truth.

"I say!" she exclaimed, turning round as I entered. "Here's a lark! Georgie's going to marry the Earl of Richmoor!"

I confess I was rather surprised,