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 gray eye, and said to him quite distinctly by the Marconi system: "Say Yes, in your heartiest voice, like a dear boy."

So of course, the young fellow had to say Yes, when he meant No.

It is unkind to make comparisons, but tea and cake in Bedford Gardens, thought Mr. Philip, is a far more interesting function than a four-course luncheon farther west. And yet the young man had by no means a great appetite just now. It was the crisis of his fate. Had Mary told Grandmamma? And what would Grandmamma say, if told she had been? For men and gods these were all-important questions.

Certainly, the old thing in the real lace that had been worn by Siddons was very grande dame indeed. Diction clear cut, lively and forcible; not a single English actor worthy of the name in the present generation, and she hadn't seen the foreign ones; in fact, the race had perished with Mr. Macready, who had taken her to Gadshill to drink tea with Mr. Dickens.

"But, what about Sir Henry Irving, Granny?" said Mary, covertly twitching her charming left eyelid at the heir.

"Pretty well, for an amateur, my dear, but better fitted to play the hind-leg of a dragon than the Prince of Denmark."

"Oh, how terribly severe!" said Mary, so demurely