"Mr.Drake has rendered his lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly appreciated and that make it all the more--a--unexpected that they should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate." "Separate ?" Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the wrong horse.

She had heard something of Mr.Drake, who was a member of his lordship's circle--the member with whom, apparently, Mrs.Jordan's avocations had most happened to throw her.

She was only a little puzzled at the "separation." "Well, at any rate," she smiled, "if they separate as friends--!" "Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr.Drake's future.

He'll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal.

There _must_, you know, be changes--!" "No one knows it better than I," the girl said.