ohn eames sat at his office on the day after his return to London, and answered the various letters which he had found waiting for him at his lodgings on the previous evening. To Miss Demolines he had already written from his club,—a single line, which he considered to be appropriate to the mysterious necessities of the occasion. "I will be with you at a quarter to six to-morrow.—J. E. Just returned." There was not another word; and as he scrawled it at one of the club tables while two or three men were talking to him, he felt rather proud of his correspondence. "It was capital fun," he said; "and after all,"—the "all" on this occasion being Lily Dale, and the sadness of his disappointment at Allington,—"after all, let a fellow be ever so down in the mouth, a little amusement should do him good." And he reflected further that the more a fellow be "down in the mouth," the more good the amusement would do him. He sent off his note, therefore, with some little inward rejoicing,—and a word or two also of spoken rejoicing. "What fun women are sometimes," he said to one of his friends,—a friend with whom he was very intimate, calling him always Fred, and slapping his back, but whom he never by any chance saw out of his club.
"What's up now, Johnny? Some good fortune?"
"Good fortune; no. I never have good fortunes of that kind. But I've got hold of a young woman,—or rather a young woman has got hold of me, who insists on having a mystery with me. In the mystery itself there is not the slightest interest. But the mysteriousness of it is charming. I have just written to her three words to settle an
