She is eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower." The first ray of hope shot into Michael's bright blue eyes--and he exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his fat, engaging throat: "Bessie! Old Bessie--By Jove, what an idea!--the very thing.

She'd do it for me like a shot, dear old body!" Binko gurgled and slobbered in sympathy.
"She would be kind to you, too, Binko.

She would not say she found your hairs on every chair, and that you dribbled on her dress! She would not tell your master that he left his cigarette-ash about, and she hated the smell of smoke! She would not want this room for her boudoir, she----" Then he stopped his flow of words, suddenly catching sight of the whimsical, sardonic smile upon his friend's face.
"Oh, Lord!" he mumbled, contritely.

"I had forgotten you were here, Henry.

I am so jolly upset." "This heartlessness about poor Maurice has finished you, eh ?" Mr.
Fordyce suggested.