This was very wrong; but there is reason to believe that many such men as Colonel Osborne, who are bachelors at fifty, are equally malicious.
He thought a good deal about it on that evening, and was still thinking about it on the following morning.

He had promised to go up to Curzon Street on the Monday,--really on some most trivial mission, on a matter of business which no man could have taken in hand whose time was of the slightest value to himself or any one else.

But now that mission assumed an importance in his eyes, and seemed to require either a special observance or a special excuse.

There was no real reason why he should not have stayed away from Curzon Street for the next fortnight; and had he done so he need have made no excuse to Mrs.Trevelyan when he met her.

But the opportunity for a little excitement was not to be missed, and instead of going he wrote to her the following note:-- Albany, Monday.
DEAR EMILY, What was it all about yesterday?
I was to have come up with the words of that opera, but perhaps it will be better to send it.