The duchess uttered a sound which was half gasp, half sigh.

“Hereward!”

“Barnes and Moysey, with beautiful and childlike innocence, when they found that they had brought the thing home empty, came straightway and told me that you had jumped out of the brougham while it had been driving full pelt through the streets.  While I was digesting that piece of information there came the first epistle, with the lock of your hair.  Before I had time to digest that there came the second epistle, with yours inside.”

“It seems incredible!”

“It sounds incredible; but unfathomable is the folly of man, especially of a man who loves his wife.”  The duke crossed to Mr. Dacre.  “I don’t want, Ivor, to suggest anything in the way of bribery and corruption, but if you could keep this matter to yourself, and not mention it to your friends, our white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed acquaintance is welcome to his five hundred pounds, and—­Mabel, what on earth are you laughing at?”

The duchess appeared, all at once, to be seized with inextinguishable laughter.

“Hereward,” she cried, “just think how that man must be laughing at you!”

And the Duke of Datchet thought of it.

The Minor Canon

It was Monday, and in the afternoon, as I was walking along the High Street of Marchbury, I was met by a distinguished-looking person whom I had observed at the services in the cathedral on the previous day.  Now it chanced on that Sunday that I was singing the service.  Properly speaking, it was not my turn; but, as my brother minor canons were either away from Marchbury or ill in bed, I was the only one left to perform the necessary duty.  The distinguished-looking person was a tall, big man with a round fat face and small features.  His eyes, his hair and mustache (his face was bare but for a small mustache) were quite black, and he had a very pleasant and genial expression.  He wore a tall hat, set rather jauntily on his head, and he was dressed in black with a long frock coat buttoned across the chest and fitting him close to the body.  As he came, with a half saunter, half swagger, along the street, I knew him again at once by his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in a soft, melodious voice with a colonial “twang” which was far from being disagreeable, and which, indeed, to my ear gave a certain additional interest to his remarks, he saluted me with “Good day, sir!”

“Good day,” I answered, with just a little reserve in my tone.

“I hope, sir,” he began, “you will excuse my stopping you in the street, but I wish to tell you how very much I enjoyed the music at your cathedral yesterday.  I am an Australian, sir, and we have no such music in my country.”

“I suppose not,” I said.

“No, sir,” he went on, “nothing nearly so fine.  I am very fond of music, and as my business brought me in this direction, I thought I would stop at your city and take the opportunity of paying a visit to your grand cathedral.  And I am delighted I came; so pleased, indeed, that I should like to leave some memorial of my visit behind me.  I should like, sir, to do something for your choir.”