fobbed off with a cold shoulder. This again was absurd, since the moiety of a loaf is preferable to total deprivation of the staff of life, and moreover, in my country, it is customary for the husband-elect to take his meals apart from his bride that is to be; nor does she ever touch food until he has previously assuaged his pangs of hunger. Notwithstanding, she would not be pacified until I had bestowed upon her a gold and turqoise ring of best English workmanship, as an olive-branch and calumet of peace.
But, outside Porticobello House, I have been close as wax on the subject of my flowery chains, and it was especially inconceivable that I should inform my friend Howardof same, since he has frequently bantered me in wonderment that a respectable Oriental magnate should reside in such a very ordinary and third-rate boarding establishment, where it was an impossibility to gain any real familiarity with smart and refined English society.
And who knows that if I should introduce Miss Jessie into company of a superior caste, some haughty masculine might insult her under my very nose; and lack-a-daisy! where would she find a protector?
I am certainly oppressed by an increasing dubiety whether Mrs Mankletow is verily such an upper crustacean and habituée of the beau monde as she did represent herself to be. It is well-nigh incomprehensible that any in-
