respectful bow. Then she turned up her pretty face towards that of the weatherbeaten cabman's, and murmured, in a low sweet tone (for the young soldier was still within earshot), "Piccadilly, 299a."

"Eh!" echoed the cabman, protruding his great head from his great-coat as a turtle does from his shell.

"299a," repeated Hester.

"All right, miss:" the porter closed the door without slamming it (which showed what a fee he must have got from somebody) and the cab, top heavy as a hermit crab, but not so speedy, crawled away with her.

CHAPTER II.-IN THE CAB.

I AM inclined to think, judging from my own experience, that a good deal of mental work is done in cabs. Circumstances are not favourable to reading in them; conversation is impossible, and their internal decoration is not sufficiently artistic to distract the mind. In the short journey that now lay before her, Hester Darrell gave herself more up to reflection than she had done in the whole transit between Paris and Charing Cross. She had, indeed, more to think about. In the first place, there was her father's non-arrival at the station, which, in the case of most daughters, would have given some rise to apprehension; and secondly, there was the acquaintance she had made with the young soldier. The latter incident, it must be admitted, made much more impression on her than the former. She loved her father dearly, but she also knew his character, or some parts of it, exceedingly well, and the fact of his not having arrived in time to meet her did not at all astonish her.

Colonel Richard Darrell had many good points, if they could not have been absolutely called virtues; but punctuality was not one of them. He was often late even for his pleasures-and the welcoming of his daughter to her new home would certainly have been one of them; while as to other appointments which had any tinge of unpleasantness in them, such as business ones, he might possibly be induced to make one, but it was contrary to his nature to keep it. No one could say that he exhausted himself in any line of action; but he was capable of some effort in order to avoid facing anything of a disagreeable nature-an admirable plan, if the disagreeable thing can be avoided, and not only postponed; but in real life this seldom happens.

The system is exactly the reverse of that which obtains among children at pudding

time; they pile into a corner of their plates all the plums for a bonne bouche at the finish: the gentlemen I have in my mind eat all their plums at first, and trust that their fate will not compel them to swallow at last all the less agreeable material they have thus accumulated. Alas, it is not so; they have to clear their plate to the last morsel, and find their "stickjaw" anything but improved by keeping.

Colonel Richard Darrell was as bold as a lion, but he had never looked a difficulty in the face, or even so much as conquered a whim. He had served with some repute, but his chief military renown, while it lasted, was that he had been the youngest lieutenantcolonel in the British army. It did not last long, for almost immediately, on obtaining that rank, he had sold his commission and entered another calling, in which he also acquired considerable distinction; at the time our story opens he was held to be the bestpreserved "man about town."

The Colonel "knew everybody"-a phrase which indicates at most some five hundred people all of one pattern and had many friends, a few of whom to his face and many behind his back called him Dick Darrell. In his youth so attentive had he been to the gentler sex, that the name of "Look and Die," which passes from one man of this stamp to another, like the succession to a throne, was universally accorded to him; and yet he had not made the great match which unquestionably lay in his power to make, but married for love an orphan girl without dower. This circumstance was urged, not without reason, or at all events not without plausibility, in his favour. He could not, men said, be a self-seeking or greedy man; he must, said women, have something of unselfishness, or even self-sacrifice, in his nature to have so acted. As it happened they were quite right; but in my opinion his marriage did not prove it. Hester Grantham was simply one of the whims which he could not conquer, and which, indeed, completely conquered him. He made (as she fondly thought) the best of husbands, and when she died, which was in giving birth to his only daughter, he was inconsolable for weeks. Little Hester became her father's darling, the most precious possession he had in the world, but also one the custody of which was exceedingly inconvenient. Some men, though not many, have a natural gift for the guardianship of children; but with well-preserved men about town it is far from common.

As Mrs. Darrell had left a surviving

becomes a pond, but to Hester her father was still an ocean, into which, although she had discovered its shores, still ran the full river of her love.

She was not displeased, and certainly not surprised, that the Colonel had not met her at the station. It was a circumstance, in fact, not worth thinking about, one way or another. Before the four-wheeled cab had reached Trafalgar Square, she had turned her thoughts-no-her thoughts had chosen for themselves another channel. Although the young soldier she had just left at the railway station was, and of course could be, nothing to her, he was the last object on the retina of her mind, and it retained it. When travellers come from the Pole and the Antipodes we often find them thus concerning themselves with some incident of their journey which has only just happened to them, and which seems to us stay-at-homes sufficiently commonplace and uninteresting. But to Hester Darrell her late companion was certainly not an uninteresting subject of thought, though it is probable she could not have made him a topic of conversation. He was very different from the military persons she had occasionally seen in her father's company. Even as a child they had struck her as carpet knights, less fitted for the field of battle than for the racecourse, and who preferred Pall Mall to active service; but this young fellow had looked every inch a soldier, and spoken of his profession with enthusiasm; he had been wounded too, for which in a competitive examination conducted by women, the candidate gets high marks; he had been very kind to her, and thoughtful for her comfort; he had noticed and sympathised with her recent embarrassment, and at the same time had behaved with great delicacy and respect. She felt that she had been rather hard upon him in declining to confide to him her address, which as the Colonel had taken a furnished house for the season, could not be obtained from the Court Guide. Her reserve, it is true, would, she felt, meet with Madame Langlais' approbation, but that did not prevent her from feeling a touch of remorse. She feared that this young gentleman must think her a little prudish, and even a little ungrateful. He was certainly -well, not handsome perhaps-but distinguished-looking. He had been very bright and genial throughout the journey, and then just at last, as he was taking leave of her, his manner had altered, he had looked sorrowful and depressed. Of course that could

have had nothing to do with their parting; such an idea was too preposterous to be entertained for an instant. It must have been some allusion that she had unconsciously made to his own affairs, and which had given him pain, poor fellow. It had been certainly but a poor return for his kindness.

The cab was in Piccadilly now, presumedly within a few doors of her destination, and yet her thoughts continued most unaccountably to dwell upon her late companion. It was when he spoke of his own home, she reflected, that his tone had become so grave; a large old-fashioned house, it seemed, such as she herself delighted in; she had passed a winter at Fromsham Hall, belonging to her father's friend, Lord Buttermere, and had enjoyed it immensely; the house had been full of company, and there had been private theatricals in which she had taken part among the young people. Perhaps his home was like that. But he had said, with a sigh, that his father saw no company, "though things did not use to be so.' Now what could he have meant by that? Perhaps, poor fellow, the family had become impoverished.

All future suggestions, however, in explanation of the change in affairs in this nameless young gentleman's unknown country house, were abruptly cut short by the stopping of the four-wheeled cab exactly opposite Apsley House.

"My good man," exclaimed Hester, putting her head out of the window, "what are you about? This is not my address."

"I've druv as far as I can go, miss, and if it ain't this it's nowhere."

"But I told you 299a."

"That's just where it is, miss. I larnt my figures at school like other people, and I've kept my eyes open all down the street, and there ain't no such number in Piccadilly."

CHAPTER III.-FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

THE situation in which our heroine now found herself was embarrassing enough; to have travelled alone from Paris to London, to have found no one to meet her, according to promise, at the station, and then to discover that the address at which she ought to have arrived had no existence, would to most girls of eighteen have seemed little short of a catastrophe. But Hester Darrell was not like "most girls." Her nature was so simple that she had been nicknamed amongst her school-fellows Daisy Darrell, a sobriquet to which their imaginations had

been doubtless assisted by her delicate complexion; but her simplicity was not of that sort which is akin to folly. She had indeed a quite unusual stock of "saving common sense," and what is still rarer in persons of her age and sex, a very keen sense of humour. Indeed it is so very rare, that before confessing that it was this sense which now came uppermost with her, I must, in justice to Hester, remind my readers that she was no mere country girl, who finds herself for the first time in London and alone. She had friends, though apparently not in Piccadilly, to whom she could have gone if necessary and awaited events, and the consciousness of this fact no doubt enabled her to take a cheerful view of matters. At all events it struck her as so exceedingly funny that the cabman should have selected Apsley House as her place of residence, that she could hardly restrain her mirth.

"Indeed you are quite wrong," she protested, almost with tears in her eyes, as the cabman was about to drive within the great gates. It was no more likely to be her papa's home, than the equestrian statue over the way was likely to be her papa. Indeed, since he was in a cavalry regiment, the latter suggestion was on the whole the less monstrously improbable one of the two.

"All I know is," said the cabman, with the dogged pertinacity of his race, "that there is no 299a anywhere, and we have come to the end of Piccadilly."

There was really some sort of logic in this; the poor man had at least driven as far as he could in the desired direction, and perhaps concluded that the stately pile before him comprised within itself a sufficient number of tenements to make up the requisite

amount.

While Hester was debating in her mind as to which of her few London friends she should apply in this emergency, whether to Lady Buttermere who lived comparatively near, or to Mrs. West in Bayswater, who though more removed as to distance, was nearer to her in social relation, and while the cabman was regarding her from his box with sidelong composure-for the difficulty was none of his-she saw a friendly face pass by.

"Mr. Langton, Mr. Langton," she called out, a little louder than gentlemen are in the habit of being addressed in Piccadilly, but in sweet, plaintive tones nevertheless.

The gentleman, who had quick ears, turned round at once. He was a tall middle-aged man attired in what almost might be called

flowing garments; his coat flew loosely back, his white waistcoat was large and loose, his trousers flapped against his roomy boots. He had the air of a man who was prepared to sacrifice (and indeed had done it) all appearances to comfort. And yet there was no mistaking Philip Langton for anything but a gentleman; nay more, he had an appearance of great distinction. Though of good family, he was not by birth an aristocrat; though moderately well provided for, he was not rich; though above the average of intelligence, he was rather plodding than brilliant; and yet with little beyond these negative qualities there were few men more sought after and made much of in London.

The secret of this social success lay in a singular combination of amiability with strength of mind; he was kind even to gentleness, but also very inflexible of purpose.. A foolish and audacious person, deceived by his pleasant ways, had sometimes ventured on taking a liberty with him, but it had never been repeated; that, too, had been years ago; he was far too well known for such an occurrence to be possible now. He was respected in a certain way even in circles where respect for any one was almost unknown; and where good fellowship reigned he was held to be its prime minister. Young gentlemen of fashion just introduced to club society thought it the proudest moment of their lives when Philip Langton took their arm as he walked down St. James's Street, and in that doubtful neighbourhood they could hardly have been in safer company. He was detested by the scoundrels of society, who laughed at his easy clothes, and mimicked his somewhat old-fashioned manners behind his broad back, but all that was best in clubland had a good word for him. He was her father's oldest friend and had been her first playmate. It was his boast that his gold watch chain had helped her to cut her teeth.

"What, you here, Miss Hester, and alone?" he said, hurrying up to the cab door. "I thought you would have been making your father's afternoon tea by this time?"

"I would be if I knew where to make it," she replied, "but he has given me the wrong address. Look here," she said, pointing to an open letter, "he has written it quite plainly, 299a."

The face of her companion became for a moment very grave, then expanded-no, it did not quite do that, it permitted itself the relaxation of a dry and humorous smile.

"It's a mistake for 99a," he said. "I