contradicente that the Great Mrs.  “Justice” Spywell is a vulgar old frump ("country-bred to say the least of it"), and call her The First Seven Sister.  This curious and unsyntactically expressed epithet alludes to the fact that she and six other “ladies” of like instincts meet daily for tea and scandal at the Gymkhana and, for three solid hours, pull to pieces the reputations of all and sundry their acquaintances, reminding the amused on-looker, by their voices, manner, and appearance, of those strange birds the Sat Bai or Seven Sisters, who in gangs of seven make day hideous in their neighbourhood ...

“Are you going to India to be married, my dear child?” she asked Lucille, before she knew her name.

“I really don’t know,” replied Lucille.

“You are not actually engaged, then?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Oh, of course, if you’d rather keep your own counsel, pray do so,” snapped the Great Lady, bridling.

“Yes,” replied Lucille, and Mrs. Spywell informed her circle of stereotypes that Lucille was a stupid chit without a word to say for herself, and an artful designing hussy who was probably an adventuress of the “fishing-fleet”.

To Auntie Yvette it appeared matter of marvel that earth and sky and sea were much as when she last passed that way.  In quarter of a century or so there appeared to be but little change in the Egyptian and Arabian deserts, in the mountains of the African and Arabian coasts, of the Gulf of Suez, in the contours of the islands of the Red Sea, and of Aden, whilst, in mid-ocean, there was absolutely no observable difference between then and now.  Wonderful indeed!

This theme, that of what was going on at Monksmead, and that of what to do when Dam was recaptured, formed the bulk of her conversation with her young companion.

“What will you do, dear, when we have found the poor darling boy?” she would ask.

“Take him by the ear to the nearest church and marry him,” Lucille would reply; or—­“Stick to him like a leech for evermore, Auntie”; or—­“Marry him when he isn’t looking, or while he’s asleep, if he’s ill—­or by the scruff of his neck if he’s well....”

(What a pity the Great Mrs.  “Justice” Spywell could not hear these terrible and unmaidenly sentiments!  An adventuress of the “fishing-fleet” in very truth!)

And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:—­

“My dear! Suppose anyone overheard you, what would they think?” Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:—­

“The truth, Auntie—­that I’m going to pursue some poor young man to his doom.  If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I would marry him in spite of himself—­or share the gutter and bread in—­er—­guilty splendour.  If he were a criminal in jail I would sit on the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing.  I’m just going to marry