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 a cheering word. He had not been out of the house for three days, and when he did go out it was only as far as Oxford Street to buy one of the papers which was telling some new story about him. Directly he got back I knew that something had happened. He was a different man from what he had been twenty minutes before, and the lines in his face seemed almost to have been wiped out by his walk.

"Hildebrand," he cried, pretty well before he was in the house, "ye'll lay out my clothes, please; I'm going to the theatre."

"To the theatre, sir?" exclaimed I, just as astonished as a man could be.

"'Tis so," he went on; "and I'll be supping away after. Ye may set out the glasses, and go to bed when you please. Do you remember me speaking of little Lilian More, that I used to know in Birmingham? Well, she's playing at the Royalty, and she's asked me down. I'm to sup with her and her one-armed brother-in-law at Chelsea. Sure, 'tis as good as quinine to hear her laugh, any day."

I said nothing in answer to this, though I was very glad to think that he had met some one who would take his mind off the trouble. Though I did not know Lilian More then, I began to hope he was not going to make a fool of himself, for he put on his dress-clothes anyhow, and such was not his way when he had the mind to please a woman, he being extraordinary vain, as some of my stories will tell. I knew well enough that an hour wouldn't have served