CHAPTER XXV.
"I think you must have heard me speak of Mr.Drake ?" Mrs.Jordan had never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large benevolent bite.
"Mr.Drake?
Oh yes; isn't he a friend of Lord Rye ?" "A great and trusted friend.

Almost--I may say--a loved friend." Mrs.Jordan's "almost" had such an oddity that her companion was moved, rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up.

"Don't people as good as love their friends when they I trust them ?" It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr.Drake.

"Well, my dear, I love _you_--" "But you don't trust me ?" the girl unmercifully asked.
Again Mrs.Jordan paused--still she looked queer.

"Yes," she replied with a certain austerity; "that's exactly what I'm about to give you rather a remarkable proof of." The sense of its being remarkable was already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held her auditor in a momentary muteness of submission.