“Mr. McPherson, I am glad to make your acquaintance.  I was in Bangor last year, at the George Hotel, and heard your name mentioned.  I am Lord Frederic Hardy, of Dublin, better known there as Ted Hardy, of Hardy Manor, and I am out on a spree, running myself, independent of tutors and guardians, and all that sort of thing; bores I consider the whole lot of them, though my guardian, fortunately, is the best-natured and most liberal old cove in the world, and gives me mostly all I want.  I think it a streak of luck to have met you here, where I know nobody and nobody knows me, I hope we may be friends.”

His manner, so friendly and so familiar, mollified Archie, who had heard of the young Irish lord, whose income was L10,000 a year, and who spent his money lavishly during the few days he was at the George, while Daisy, who held a title in great veneration, was enraptured with this young peer who treated her I like an equal.  And so it came that in half an hour’s time the three were the best of friends, and had made several plans with regard to what they would do during their stay at Monte Carlo.

The next day Daisy did not see her new acquaintance, but as she was dressing for the table d’hote dinner, which she could afford with her twelve pounds gain, a box was brought to her room, with a note addressed to her by Lord Hardy, who wrote as follows: 

“DEAR MRS. McPHERSON:  I send you a new dress in place of the one I had the misfortune to spoil yesterday Please accept it without a protest, just as if I were your brother, or your husband’s best friend, as I hope to be.  Yours sincerely,

    “TED HARDY.”

“Oh, Archie!” Daisy exclaimed, as she opened the box and held to view a soft, rich, lustrous silk of dark navy-blue, which Lord Hardy had found in Nice, whither he had been that day, and which, in quality and style, did justice to his taste and generosity.  “Oh, Archie, isn’t it a beauty, and it almost stands alone?”

“Ye-es,” Archie answered, meditatively, for he rather doubted the propriety of receiving so costly a present for his wife from a stranger, and he said so to Daisy, adding that it was of course very kind in Lord Hardy, but wholly uncalled for, and she’d better return it at once, as he would not quite like to see her wear it.

But Daisy began to cry, and said she had never had a silk dress in her life, and this was just what she wanted, and she could make it herself, and she presumed the amount Lord Hardy paid for it was no more to him than a few pence were to them.  And so she kept it and thanked Lord Hardy very sweetly for it with tears swimming in her great blue eyes, when she met him in the evening at dinner, for he had given up his luxurious quarters at the more fashionable hotel, and had come to the same house with the McPhersons, whose shadow he became.  The navy-blue silk was quickly made in the privacy of Daisy’s apartment, and she was very charming in it, and attracted a great