Christina

n. Do I look the sort of man

, domestic life, would like to find a young lady of refined and cultured tastes who would meet you with-a view to matrimony. I

peaker's bronzed and grinning countenance, momentarily obliterating grin and countenanc

st the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette, and looking with amused eyes at the squirming figure under the lar

ched a newspaper in one hand, and tried to smooth his rumpled hair with the other. "The Sunday Recorder has a matrimonial column-and-knowing poor old Rupert to be a lonely bachelor, not badly off, and desirous of settli

on. He was sitting in an armchair drawn close to the glowing fire, his hands clasped under his head, his face full of languid amusement, turned towards the grinning youth upon the sofa. Without being precisely a handsome man, Rupert Mernside's was a stri

Rupert Mernside's voice lay his greatest attraction; and a lady of his acquaintance had once bee

y, but also to his men friends; but thirty-five still found Rupert Mernside unmarried, and the manoeuvres of match-making mot

ey to-settle down and become domesticated. There are hundreds-no-thousands of young women in the world, who would 'meet you with a view to m

e rose, and stretched himself, "if you are so keen on matrim

nd young. And you might arrange to meet any number of them at different places, and have no end of a ripping time. You onl

d yourself in some unpleasantly tangled web, my boy, if you play the goat over matrimonial advertisements.

rt; on this genial and pleasant November afternoon, when you can't see half a mile ahead of you for the mist, a

garette; "Cicely won't be down till tea-time; she is spending the afternoon in the nursery, looking after the small girl. Confounded nuisa

side answered; "what would she hav

n; "she's the dearest little soul alive, but Cicely never ought to have been a mother, though I shouldn't

d in the laughter, and th

not entitled to give an opinion about her. Rupert and I, as cousins, see her in a truer perspective. Bless her sweet he

indly, almost caressing touch, as he and his cousin, Lord Wilfrid St

nd most beautiful in the county. But, on this Sunday afternoon in November, nothing more was visible than the broad gravel terrace immediately below the house, and a grass lawn that sloped abruptly from the terrace, and was dotted with trees. Everything beyond the lawn was swallowed up in a white mist that drifted over the tree-tops, and clung to the dank grass, blot

since his death, it had still remained a recognised thing that the two cousins should spend their weekends at Bramwell, whenever Lady Cicely and her little daughter were there. The kindly millionaire who had married the lovely but impecunious Cicely Staynes, one of the numerous daughters of the Earl of Netherhall, possessed a host of hospitable instincts, and the Castle had opened its gates wide to Cicely's relations and friends. Only one reservation

that ever lived-even if he hadn't many good looks with which to bless himself." He looked up again at the plain but kindly

feel his hand through the glove. Cicely wants a master-all women do want a master," Jack wagged his head sagely, when his thoughts reached this point. Having attained to the ripe age of twenty-five, he felt he had plumbed the nature of woman to its lowest depths, "and Cicely was lucky to find a master who could give her

on that November afternoon, may, on the whole, be taken for granted, for as Jack's blue eyes ran down

ct, by the time I come back, good old Rupert may have forgotten the little practical joke." Whilst he soliloquized, he was making his way towards the writing-table, where, having seated himself, he drew towards him a blank sh

day Recorder; "it will be pure joy to think of the dear soul's dismay, horror, and disgust. ''Tis a mad world, my masters'-and, oh! to see our Rupert's face when the letters pour in.

ard all letters in response to the enclosed advertisement to R.M.

LAYT

having stamped it, went whistling from the house, and through the park to

of good birth who needs a home, etc., etc., etc.," he murmured as he walked slowly back to