Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/254

 dreaming that his bread would come back to him toasted and buttered. Gladys married a poor New York broker, while she thought herself engaged to an English peer, just as surely as if the real Cuthbert Larkington had never been shot, and the false one discovered, and the Little Quickgain did not stand at 275. To her the credit of such unworldliness belongs, and only envy can deny it to her. It is not so often that we have a love match in our set; we had better make the most of it, I think."

The good Mrs. Fallow-Deer, at heart warm and kindly, spoke indignantly to the little pretty fribble of a worldling at her side, and Count Clawski noticed, as he joined the two ladies, that some rather high words must have passed between them, but he was too full of his subject to keep it to himself, he had a bit of news which he knew would be eagerly listened to by them both.

"I have just heard the real truth about our Englishman," he said, "in a letter from