At eleven o'clock the following day Mrs. Tompkins leisurely sips her cocoa as she breaks her fast in the pretty morning room at No. ---- Eaton Square, her step-daughter, an American born and bred, is her companion, a tiny young woman all pale tints, colourless face, sharp features, sharp little eyes always watery, always with a red rim about them giving the paleness of their blue a pink shade. When off guard the mouth is resolute, the eyes wearing a stealthy cunning look; the mask on, 'tis an old-child face with a wondering expression of innocence about it. The grasshopper in the Park yonder might claim kinship and Darwin there find the missing link in the wee figure clothed in its robe of grass green, all waist and elbows. She had no love for her step-mother whom she had been taught by hirelings to consider her natural enemy and with whom she could only cope with subtle craftiness.

Mrs. Tompkins' maid now enters with a note upon a salver; on reading it her mistress simply writing the word "come" on the reverse side of one of her cards, seals with her monograph, addressing the envelope to "Colonel Haughton" she smiles as she thinks "I shall soon seal with my crest."

"Take this to the servant, Masoff, and give my strict orders to Peter to admit only Colonel Haughton or Capt. Trevalyon until after luncheon."

"Yes, madam."

"And, Mason, bid Sarah be in readiness to attend Miss Tompkins, who will drive to Bayswater in half an hour for the day. John will have the close carriage at the door."

"Yes, madam."

Here is the heart wish of Blanche fulfilled, but she does not show it, saying:

"Why must I go to that stupid place, step-momma? Such a mean crowd."

"Because I wish it; at all events, you pretend such affection for your old school-teachers when with them, that to cover your aversion to visit them it is my duty to insist on your going there when a drive would benefit you. Should their nephew, Sir Tilton Everly, be with them, tell him (as I want him to-morrow) he may as well return with you."

Blanche made a _moue_, saying poutingly, while feeling that a _billet-doux_ was safe in her pocket:

"I was due at the Tottenham's this morning: Cis was coming shopping;" which was a romance of the moment.

"Tell John to drive around to Gloucester Square, and you can take her with you."

"No, I shall not. What do you want Sir Tilton for? Might be Vanderbilt, the fuss you make over him."

"I know you dislike him; mere envy, Blanche, for his devotion to myself, which is absurd," with a satisfied glance at the mirror opposite. "Men being born hunters will hunt you for the golden dollar; me, for myself. So as you have breakfasted, away; try and be civil to Sir Tilton, and bring him back to dinner with you at eight o'clock; ta-ta."

As Miss Tompkins paced the corridors to her own apartments she muttered: