.

A COMMISSION.
Mr.Robert Blaine-Harvey, American Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to England, was a man of great culture, surprising personal gifts, and with a diplomatic instinct which amounted almost to genius.

And yet there were times when he was puzzled.

For at least half an hour he had been sitting in his great library, looking across the Park, and trying to make up his mind on a very important matter.

It seemed to him that he was face to face with what amounted almost to a crisis in his career.