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The Green Carnation.

said he would go and see. Eventually he returned with three.

"There is one more, ma'am—the upper housemaid's," he said, handing them on a salver. "But she wrote comments in it when she belonged to the Salvation Army, and she can't rub them out, ma'am, so she don't like to show it."

"Really!" said Mrs. Windsor, looking mystified. "Well, never mind, we must try and manage with these. Oh! Lord Reggie, you won't want one, of course, because you will be behind the curtain. I forgot that. We are going to walk. It is only ten minutes or so, and I thought it would be more rustic, especially as the roads are dusty. Now, I think we ought to start. If we are late it will create a scandal, and Mr. Smith will be horrified."

"How dutiful the atmosphere is!" Madame Valtesi said to Amarinth as they set forth. "We are so frightfully punctual that I feel quite like an early Christian. I wonder why the Christians were always so early before we were born? They are generally very late now."

"I suppose they have grown tired," he answered, arranging the carnation in his buttonhole meditatively. "Probably we suffer from the activity of our forefathers. When I feel