"How can she, after all, when you are already such a little mass of corruption?"

"You don't think that," said Hyacinth, looking very grave.

"Do you mean that if I did I would n't say it? Have n't you noticed that I say what I think?"

"No, you don't, not half of it: you're as close as a fish."

Paul Muniment looked at his companion a moment, as if he were rather struck with the penetration of that remark; then he said, "Well, then, if I should give you the other half of my opinion of you, do you think you'd fancy it?"

"I'll save you the trouble. I'm a very clever, conscientious, promising young chap, and any one would be proud to claim me as a friend."

"Is that what your Princess told you? She must be a precious piece of goods!" Paul Muniment exclaimed. "Did she pick your pocket meanwhile?"

"Oh yes; a few minutes later I missed a silver cigar-case, engraved with the arms of the Robinsons. Seriously," Hyacinth continued, "don't you consider it possible that a woman of that class should want to know what is going on among the like of us?"

"It depends upon what class you mean."

"Well, a woman with a lot of jewels and the manners of an angel. It's queer, of course, but it's conceivable: why not? There may be unselfish natures; there may be disinterested feelings."

"And there may be fine ladies in an awful funk about their jewels, and even about their manners. Seriously, as you say, it's perfectly conceivable. I am not in the least surprised at the aristocracy being curious to know what we are up to, and wanting very much to look into it; in their place I should be

"Well, you won't," Hyacinth declared. And then he asked whether his friend thought the Princess Casamassima a spy; and why, if she were in that line, Mr. Sholto was not inasmuch as it must be supposed he was not, since they had seen fit to let him walk in and out, at that rate, in the place in Bloomsbury. Muniment did not even know whom he meant, not having had any relations with the gentleman; but he summed up a sufficient image when his companion had described the captain's appearance. He then remarked, with his usual geniality, that he did n't take him for a spy he took him for an ass; but even if he had edged himself into the place with every intention to betray them, what handle could he possibly getwhat use, against them, could he make of anything he had seen or heard? If he had a fancy to dip into working men's clubs (Muniment remembered, now, the first night he came; he had been brought by that German cabinetmaker, who wore green spectacles and smoked a pipe with a bowl as big as a hat); if it amused him to put on a bad hat, and inhale foul tobacco, and call his "inferiors" "my dear fellow;" if he thought that in doing so he was getting an insight into the people, and going

half-way to meet them, and preparing for what was coming all this was his own affair, and he was very welcome, though a man must be a flat who would spend his evening in a hole like that when he might enjoy his comfort in one of those flaming big shops, full of armchairs and flunkies, in Pall Mall. And what did he see, after all, in Bloomsbury? Nothing but a "social gathering," where there were clay pipes, and a sanded floor, and not half enough gas, and the principal newspapers; and where the men, as any one would know, were advanced radicals, and mostly advanced idiots. He could pat as many of them on the back as he liked, and say the House of Lords would n't last till Christmas; but what discoveries would he make? He was simply on the same lay as Hyacinth's Princess; he was nervous and scared, and he thought he would see for himself.

"Oh, he is n't the same sort as the Princess. I'm sure he 's in a very different line!" Hyacinth exclaimed.

"Different, of course: she's a handsome woman, I suppose, and he's an ugly man; but I don't think that either of them will save us or spoil us. Their curiosity is natural, but I have got other things to do than to show them about; therefore you can tell her serene highness that I'm much obliged."

Hyacinth reflected a moment, and then he said, “You show Lady Aurora about; you seem to wish to give her the information she desires; and what's the difference? If it's right for her to take an interest, why is n't it right for my Princess?"

If she's already yours, what more can she want?" Muniment asked. “All I know of Lady Aurora, and all I look at, is that she comes and sits with Rosy, and brings her tea, and waits upon her. If the Princess will do as much, I'll tell her she's a woman of genius; but apart from that I shall never take a grain of interest in her interest in the

masses

or in this particular mass! And Paul Muniment, with his discolored thumb, designated his own substantial person. His tone was disappointing to Hyacinth, who was surprised at his not appearing to think the episode at the theatre more remarkable and romantic. Muniment seemed to regard his explanation of such a proceeding as all-sufficient; but when, a but when, a moment later, he made use, in referring to the mysterious lady, of the expression that she was quaking," Hyacinth broke out "Never in the world; she 's not afraid of anything!"

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Ah, my lad, not afraid of you, evidently!"

Hyacinth paid no attention to this coarse sally, but asked in a moment, with a candor that was proof against further ridicule, "Do you think she can do me a hurt of any kind, if we follow up our acquaintance?"

"Yes, very likely, but you must hit her back! That's your line, you know: to go in for what's going, to live your life, to gratify the women. I'm an ugly, grimy brute, that has got to watch the fires and mind the shop, but you are one of those taking little beggars who ought to run about and see the world; you ought to be an ornament to society, like a young man in an illustrated storybook. Only," Muniment added in a moment, "you know, if she should hurt you very much, then I would go and see her!"

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Hyacinth had been intending for some time to take Pinnie to call on the prostrate damsel in Audley Court, to whom he had promised that his benefactress (he had told Rose Muniment that she was a kind of aunt") should pay this civility; but the affair had been delayed by wan hesitations on the part of the dressmaker, for the poor woman had hard work to imagine, to-day, that there were people in London so forlorn that her countenance could be of value to them. Her social curiosities had be

you see the connection with the pink dressing-gown," she remarked to Pinnie, and I hope you see the importance of the question, Shall anything go? I should like you to look round a bit, and tell me what you would answer if I were to say to you, Can anything go?"

XV.

"I'm sure there's nothing I should like to part with," Pinnie returned; and while she surveyed the scene, Lady Aurora, with delicacy, to lighten Amanda's responsibility, got up and turned to the window, which was open to the summer evening, and admitted, still, the last rays of the long day. Hyacinth, after a moment, placed himself beside her, looking out with her at the dusky multitude of chimney-pots and the small black houses, roofed with grimy tiles. The thick, warm air of a London July floated beneath them, suffused with the everlasting uproar of the town, which appeared to have sunk into quietness, but again became a mighty voice, as soon as one listened for it; here and there, in poor windows, glimmered a turbid light, and high above, in a clearer, smokeless zone, a sky still fair and luminous, a faint silver star looked down. The sky was the same that, far away in the country, bent over golden fields, and purple hills, and gardens where Lightingales sang; but from this point of view everything that covered the arth was ugly and sordid, and seemed to express, or to represent, the weariess of toil. In an instant, to Hyanth's surprise, Lady Aurora said to m, "You never came, after all, to "t the books."

Those you kindly offered to lend ? I did n't know it was an undernding."

Lady Aurora gave an uneasy laugh. have picked them out; they are ready."

"It's very kind of you," the young man rejoined. "I will come and get them some day, with pleasure." He was not very sure that he would; but it was the least he could say.

"She'll tell you where I live, you know," Lady Aurora went on, with a movement of her head in the direction of the bed, as if she were too shy to mention it herself.

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Oh, I have no doubt she knows the way- she could tell me every street and every turn!" Hyacinth exclaimed.

"She has made me describe to her, very often, how I come and go. I think that few people know more about London than she. She never forgets anything."

"She's a wonderful little witch she terrifies me!" said Hyacinth.

Lady Aurora turned her modest eyes upon him. "Oh, she's so good, she's so patient!"

"Yes, and so wise, and so self-possessed."

"Oh, she's immensely clever," said her ladyship. "Which do you think the cleverest?"

"The cleverest?"

"I mean of the girl and her brother." "Oh, I think he, some day, will be prime minister of England.”

"Do you really? I'm so glad!” cried Lady Aurora, with a flush of color in her face. "I'm so glad you think that will be possible. You know it ought to be, if things were right."

Hyacinth had not professed this high faith for the purpose of playing upon her ladyship's feelings, but when he perceived her eager responsiveness he felt almost as if he had been making sport of her. Still, he said no more than he believed when he remarked, in a moment, that he had the greatest expectations of Paul Muniment's future: he was sure that the world would hear of him, that England would feel him, that the public, some day, would acclaim him. It was impossible to associate

come very nearly extinct, and she knew that she no longer made the same figure in public as when her command of the fashions enabled her to illustrate them in her own little person, by the aid of a good deal of whalebone. Moreover, she felt that Hyacinth had strange friends and still stranger opinions; she suspected that he took an unnatural interest in politics, and was somehow not on the right side, little as she knew about parties or causes; and she had a vague conviction that this kind of perversity only multiplied the troubles of the poor, who, according to theories which Pinnie had never reasoned out, but which, in her bosom, were as deep as religion, ought always to be of the same way of thinking as the rich. They were unlike them enough in their poverty, without trying to add other differences. When at last she accompanied Hyacinth to South Lambeth, one Saturday evening at midsummer, it was in a sighing, skeptical, second-best manner; but if he had told her he wished it, she would have gone with him to a soirée at a scavenger's. There was no more danger of Rose Muniment's being out than of one of the bronze couchant lions in Trafalgar Square having walked down Whitehall; but he had let her know in advance, and he perceived, as he opened her door in obedience to a quick, shrill summons, that she had had the happy thought of inviting Lady Aurora to help her to entertain Miss Pynsent. Such, at least, was the inference he drew from seeing her ladyship's memorable figure rise before him for the first time since his own visit. He presented his companion to their recumbent hostess, and Rosy immediately repeated her name to the representative of Belgrave Square. Pinnie curtsied down to the ground, as Lady Aurora put out her hand to her, and slipped noiselessly into a chair beside the bed. Lady Aurora laughed and fidgeted, in a friendly, cheerful, yet at the same time rather pointless man

ner, and Hyacinth gathered that she had no recollection of having met him before. His attention, however, was mainly given to Pinnie: he watched her jealously, to see whether, on this important occasion, she would not put forth a certain stiff, quaint, polished politeness, of which she possessed the secret, and which made her resemble a pair of old-fashioned sugar-tongs. Not only for Pinnie's sake, but for his own as well, he wished her to pass for a superior little woman, and he hoped she would n't lose her head if Rosy should begin to talk about Inglefield. She was, evidently, much impressed by Rosy, and kept repeating, "Dear, dear!" under her breath, as the small, strange person in the bed rapidly explained to her that there was nothing in the world she would have liked so much as to follow her delightful profession, but that she could n't sit up to it, and had never had a needle in her hand but once, when, at the end of three minutes, it had dropped into the sheets and got into the mattress, so that she had always been afraid it would work out again, and stick into. her; but it had n't done so yet, and perhaps it never would — she lay so quiet, she did n't push it about much. "Perhaps you would think it's me that trimmed the little handkerchief I wear round my neck," Miss Muniment said; "perhaps you would think I could n't do less, lying here all day long, with complete command of my time. Not a stitch of it. I'm the finest lady in London; I never lift my finger for myself. It's a present from her ladyship- it's her ladyship's own beautiful needlework. What do you think of that? Have you ever met any one so favored before? And the work-just look at the work, and tell me what you think of that!" The girl pulled off the bit of muslin from her neck and thrust it at Pinnie, who looked at it confusedly, and exclaimed, "Dear, dear, dear!" partly in sympathy, partly as if, in spite