child's pink cheeks between her hands, and looking at her earnestly," you little, constant, foolish, impatient thing!"

"I thought I should never see you again," Laura said, shyly. "What a beautiful room this is, and how beautiful you are in your white morning-gown!"

"And how pretty somebody else has grown! though just a little dishevelled, and crumpled, and bespattered at this present moment. Let us take off your hat and cloak, and smooth your hair, and settle you comfortably in this fauteuil. I keep it for my pets, and nobody else," Kitty added, sweetly.

"It seems a shame to put my long wet hair on these blue velvet cushions," Laura said, looking at all Kitty's elegant surroundings with a child's wonder.

Nonsense; what is upholstery for but to use?" answered Kitty, with the grand air of one who has just come into a fortune. "But now, tell me news of you all. Is Dr Norman in Paris?"

"Papa and Prissy and I came yesterday," began Laura.

"Without the boys?"

"Yes; Wattie is gone to school now."

"And how long do you stay?"

"I don't know, it depends".

courage to add-" upon you."

"And where are you staying?"

Laura hesitated, lacking

Laura named a quiet, old-fashioned hotel in the Faubourg St Germain, and mentioned that she had come to see her quite of her own accord, adding

"Papa says he shall write to you."

"I am afraid that I shall have to appear very inhospitable," Kitty said; "but, of course, not being in my own house, I can't invite my friends as I should like to do; you shall invite me instead," she added, coaxingly; and, after some further talk, said, "But now I am afraid I must send you away, you dear, good little pet, and you must come some other time to see all my pretty things, for to-day I have many things to do for Mrs Wingfield, and you wouldn't have me get scolded on your account, would you?"

"Nobody ever scolds you," Laura said.

"But see all those letters to answer, and she has friends coming to breakfast at twelve."

"And when will you come to see us?"

“As if I could tell you now, dear child! But I will come, of course I will, and I am so pleased to see you again. Put this little box of bonbons in your pocket for Prissy,—and give my love to all; I dare not keep you any longer, darling. Good-bye." Truth to say, Kitty had heard a ring at the outer door, and was anxious to get rid of one visitor before another should How could she tell who the next comers might be? Perhaps some fashionable friends; and what would they think of her little provincial Laura ?

come.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SURPRISE UPON SURPRISE.

LAURA went away, smiling to herself for joy at having found her long-lost treasure, and much too happy and too dazzled by the brilliancy of Kitty's new position to think of possible disappointment for herself just then. Greatly to her surprise, a friendly voice uttered her name, and a friendly hand was laid on her shoulder as she reached the threshold.

"My stars, if it isn't little Laura Norman !"

"O! Mrs Cornford, it 's you!"

And Laura, like the loving little thing she was, kissed her old drawing-mistress warmly, and could not seem glad enough to see her again. It was so easy to Laura to love people when she felt happy,-and she felt quite happy just now.

"Well," said Mrs Cornford, in that delightful unconsciousness of cotton gloves, be-painted gown, disreputable bonnet, and unkempt hair, that is second nature to your veritable Bohemian, "so you have been paying court to our runaway daughter of Mammon, have you?"

"O, Mrs Cornford!"

"O, Miss Laura! if you haven't eyes in your head I have, and can tell a mountebank in a moment, though he has got on his plain clothes. Our good Kitty's inner woman is like a mountebank, always dressed in plain clothes; and so stupid are all of you that none but I have had the sense to find it out."

Had Laura's old teacher struck her, she could hardly have felt more hurt or startled; to her, Kitty's self was sacred as the Commander of the Faithful to all true Mussulmans; and being too simple to fathom Mrs Cornford's psychological subtleties, she could not bear her name to be unceremoniously used.

"It's of no use mincing matters, my dear," Mrs Cornford continued, with a pat on the child's shoulder. "Kitty is a lover of Mammon, but it's only the old birds who know how people set traps, and when you have been caught once or twice you will be wiser. I suppose you are all here in a lump?"

"Yes; that is, papa and my little sister are here."

"We are staying in the Rue de Trévise, numero quatre, but I am sure to be found in the Louvre almost every morning. Come and see me at which place you like best, my dear. On second thoughts, perhaps your papa might not like you to come to my quarters; but the Louvre is always respectable. You may paint with me sometimes, if you like." Then, with a hasty good-bye, they parted.

When Françine, for the second time that day, opened the door to a shabbily-dressed lady, who had evidently walked a long distance in the rain, her mind misgave her as to what she ought to do; but rough and ready speech carries almost as much weight with the uneducated as fine clothes and fine manners, and Mrs Cornford spoke French roughly, but readily enough. Mrs Cornford, moreover, was a large person; Françine was small, and Françine was awed. Mrs Cornford was

ushered in.

Kitty's little room was quite a picture of artistic finish and fancy, and the first thought that rose to Polly Cornford's mind. was-The little artful creature! who would have thought of her stealing all this taste from poor Perry and me? Her

quick, unforgetting artist's eye took in every element of harmony in a moment the mellow tints of the wall, the bright, rich carpet, the sober use of colour everywhere, the taste displayed in every bit of furniture. Kitty had used every available means to make her room perfect, and what woman does not look twice as attractive in a beautiful room? To Mrs Cornford, Kitty looked metamorphosed, as she advanced, dressed in an elegant morning dress of white cashmere, her hair smooth, her slippers of velvet richly embroidered.

But the vision of kind, slatternly, slangy, irrevocably Bohemian Polly Cornford came upon Kitty like a forgotten promise, or a bank failure, that makes one grow suddenly old and ugly. It is, however, against the laws of decent society that this sort of feeling should ever be expressed, and Kitty greeted her friend as if at that particular moment she thought her an angel.

'My stars!" said Mrs Cornford, going from one piece of furniture to the other, with her glass to her eye, as soon as. the first words of greeting were over. "My stars! Kitty, in what coin do you pay for all this? What a delicious colour your paper is, to be sure! I'll use it for my next background; and what sweet little silly things in Sèvres on your cabinet! and you've got one or two pictures too-—a real chefd'œuvre this, on my soul! and the genuine Doré's Don Quichotte; and my! what a jolly carpet!"

66

'Algerian," said Kitty, glad to find a topic; "isn't it a lovely thing? what reds, what greens, and what yellows! and look at all the different patterns."

"I say, Kitty, is it your own, and will you lend it to me? I'm painting a picture out of the Arabian Nights,' and your carpet is just what I want."

"Of course," Kitty said.

"But I ought not to have asked you for the loan of it yet, for you mayn't like to lend your carpets to me after I have said my say."

Kitty winced, but would not let her wincing be palpable for worlds.

"As if anything you could say would make me disagreeable," she said, sweetly; "but take off your cloak, and we will have coffee, and talk over that."

She rang the bell, and ordered Françine to bring up coffee and cakes, with less authority than usual. Poor Kitty! Mrs Cornford's visit was less bearable to her than a neuralgic attack.

"The chicks are here," began Mrs Cornford. "Oh!" Kitty answered, smiling.

"And the Bianchis are here."

"Oh!" Kitty said, still suave. "And Perry is here."

"Oh!" Kitty said, trying to smile, but groaning inwardly. "And we are going to make a regular season in Paris, and stay I don't know how long. Don't say you are glad, Kitty; I know in your heart you are thinking what a horrid lump of us to be here, and wishing that we were all safe at home in Paradise Place."

"How can you say such things? If they were true, I should be the most ungrateful wretch under the sun."

"Everything is possible in this world," said Mrs Cornford, coolly, "and, if I must speak the plain truth, my dear, our faith in you is looking a little the worse for the wear."

Kitty dropped into a chair, biting one of her long locks savagely, and sat still.

"I don't say you are ungrateful," Mrs Cornford went on; "there is no sort of need for old friends to be grateful to one another."

Here Kitty came to Mrs Cornford's side, and put her arms about her deprecatingly, and interposed,

"My dear Polly, how absurd to say that I have no need to be grateful to you!" adding, with tears and a fine, tremulous burst of passion, "you dear, good, ill-repaid, generous

creature!"

"Pooh, pooh! I'm a hard working, out-at-elbow, vulgar wretch, that's what I am; and you're quite a fashionable lady now, and wouldn't come and call on me in my five-pair back