"It seems to me to be two ladies," said Mrs. Grinlay Snarl, hastening to her chair of state after she had glanced in the pier-glasses, and shaken out her crinoline.

"Parturiunt montes! nascitur ridiculus mus," muttered Grinlay, as the page, radiant in many rows of plated buttons, announced Mrs. and Miss Blair.

The meeting was a very awkward one. They had been invited merely to gratify Grinlay's wish to mortify Lucy by compelling her to contrast her mean attire and dejected, forlorn state with the bridal elegance and high spirits of the newly-married Brillianté. But Lucy's elegant toilette and singular beauty of form and face made the bride look, even in her Grinlay's eyes, harsh, old, and vulgar.

Brillianté, who could not but perceive the involuntary admiration of her Grinlay's glances, became excited, flippant, and almost rude, and when, as the rooms filled with brothers and sisters of the pen, all more or less wor

shippers of "the beautiful," and Lucy became the object of that homage and attention which the bride had expected to monopolize, both Mr. and Mrs. Grinlay Snarl looked anything but the happy pair they wished to be thought; but, to crown all, Lord Madrigal and Sir Plagiar, with several of the “Orators of the Age" whom Grinlay had eulogised in his article, dropped in, and not caring one pin for pleasing anything but themselves, took little notice of anything but Lucy-to whom opera boxes and admissions to the upper and lower house, and compliments of all kinds, were offered. The bride's cheeks grew of a deeper and a deeper red the while, and Grinlay Snarl's eyes flashed green fire as he glanced at the unconscious Lucy, when all at once Lord Madrigal, producing a beautifully bound volume of his "Fugitive Follies" (which he had intended. for the bride), begged Lucy's acceptance of it.

This was the overflowing drop of the bride's cup of despair. A succession of wild screams,

laughs, sobs, from Mrs. Grinlay Snarl, electrified the guests. Brillianté was subject to hysterics, and Grinlay, lifting his bride in his arms, carried her, shrieking and laughing, into the adjoining bed-chamber. This catastrophe broke up the meeting.

Grinlay Snarl came out to apologize for his bride's sudden indisposition. Lord Madrigal handed Lucy to Sir George's carriage, while Sir Plagiar offered his services to Mrs. Blair.

And Lucy drove away, having made a dozen useless conquests, and a bitter enemy of Mrs. Grinlay Snarl. So ended the "At Home " and Mrs. Blair's hopes of a reconciliation.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN OLD FRIEND.

THE next day Lucy Blair, on leaving Sir George's house, suddenly met with Cecil Sydney at the corner of Belgrave Square. As it struck her that his help might be of great value to her in effecting Mrs. Green Brown's escape, Lucy, while he walked by her side towards Bayswater, told him, as briefly as she could, all that had befallen her poor friend since he had seen her last; and Cecil Sydney, who had never forgotten Mrs. Green Brown's kindness to himself, and who was now com

pletely "white-washed" and free, was delighted at the idea of assisting the poor pri

soner to escape.

He wrote a few lines with a pencil on his card, and begged Lucy, if possible, to convey them to Mrs. Green Brown. He then proposed to accompany Lucy to Bayswater, that he might have an opportunity of reconnoitring the Blissful Retreat, and determining his plan of attack.

He told Lucy where to address him, in case of his services being suddenly required, and assured her he would rather carry off that good-natured, kind-souled Green Brown from the Blissful Retreat, than any heiress he knew of from her father's halls.

Some days passed before Lucy had an opportunity of giving Mrs. Green Brown Cecil Sydney's card. But at length she was enabled to do so. Mrs. Green Brown, who, always perfectly sane, had been extremely violent when first she found herself within