with Mr. Chessingham to take his sister-in-law to New York. Besides he found every imaginable fault with the proposed traveling companions, and the Chessinghams and Ethel felt that, after enjoying Mr. Romaine's hospitality for so long, they ought to defer to him as regarded the impending departure. Therefore, although Miss Maywood had undoubtedly got her congé from Mr. Romaine, she was still under his roof well on in December, and it looked as if he would succeed in doing to her what Letty complained of in her own case—making a fool of her. Ethel was really very anxious to leave; but this reluctance to give her up on the part of her elderly and eccentric friend made her wonder sometimes whether, after all, Mr. Romaine would let her return to England without him. He openly declared that he was tired of Virginia and meant to take a house in London for the season; and he actually engaged, by correspondence, a charming house at Prince's Gate, from the first of April. Ethel felt that it would be flying in the face of Providence to insist upon going, as long as there was a chance of her presiding over the house in Prince's Gate. And the liberty and spending-money enjoyed by Ameri-
