depressed. The Queen fluttered about the room, pausing a moment on the mantel-shelf for a word or two with her old friend the Dresden china shepherdess. Then she came back to the desk and performed a brief pas seul on the shining smooth cover of my pass-book. My mind flew instantly to my slender bank-balance and certain recent foolishnesses.

"Talking of favourites," I said—"talking of favourites, do you take any interest in racing?"

Instantly the Queen subsided on to my rubber stamp damper, which was fortunately dry.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "I take a great interest in racing. I love it. I can give you all sorts of hints."

I thought it was a pity she hadn't called a week or two earlier. I might have been a richer woman by a good many pounds.

"And there are so many kinds," continued the Queen earnestly. "Now in a butterfly race it's always best just to hold on and let them do as they like. It's not a bit of use trying to make them go straight. Rabbits are better in that way, but even rabbits are a little uncertain at times. Full of nerves. But have you ever tried swallow-racing?" she went on enthusiastically. "It's simply splendid. You give them their heads and you never know where you may get to. But, anyway, it doesn't really matter in the least afterwards who wins; it's only while it's happening that you feel so thrilled, isn't it?"

I didn't acquiesce very whole-heartedly. I'm afraid my thoughts were with my lost guineas. It had rather mattered afterwards. I really had been very foolish.

"You look depressed," said the Fairy Queen. "Can I help you? I'm really extremely practical. You know, don't you," she leaned forward and looked at me earnestly, "that I should be delighted if I could assist you with any advice?"

I hesitated. Just before she came I had been anxiously considering as to how I was going to make one hundred pounds do the work of two during the next few weeks; but somehow I didn't quite like to mention such material matters to the Queen; it didn't seem suitable.

I looked up and met her kind eyes fixed on mine with an expression of the gentlest interest and solicitude.

"I wonder," I said, still hesitating, "whether you know anything about stocks and shares?"

"Stocks and shares," she repeated slowly, looking just a little vague and puzzled. And then—"Oh, yes, of course I do, if that's all you want to know."

I felt quite pleased now that I had really got it out.

"If you could just give me a useful hint or two I should be tremendously grateful," I said. Already thousands loomed entrancingly before me. Already I saw myself settled in that darling cottage on the windy hill above Daccombe Wood. Already—

"I think I had better get a pencil and paper," I said. "My memory's dreadful."

But the Fairy Queen shook her head.

"I'll write it down for you," she said, "and you can read it when I'm gone. That's so much more fun. But I don't need paper."

She drew a tiny shining implement from her pocket and, picking up a couple of rose-petals which had fallen upon the table, she busied herself with them for a moment at my desk, her mouth pursed up, her brows contracted in an expression of intense seriousness.

"There," she said, "that's that. And now show me all your new clothes."

We spent quite a pleasant evening over one thing and another, and I forgot all about the rose-leaves until after she had gone; but when I came back to my empty sitting-room they shone in the dusk with a soft radiance which came, I discovered, from the writing on them. It glowed like those luminous figures on watches which were so entrancing when they first appeared. I had never realised before that they were fairy figures.

I spread the petals out on my palm, feeling quite excited at the prospect of making my fortune by such means, though I was a little anxious as to how I was going to make use of the information I was about to acquire.

"I will ask Cousin Fred," I decided (Cousin Fred being a stockbroker), and I smiled a little to myself as I thought how amazed and possibly amused my dapper cousin would be when he learnt the source of my knowledge. He might even refuse to believe in it—and then where should I be?

I needn't have troubled. When I unfolded my rose-petals this is what I read:—

"Stocks.—The white ones are much the best and have by far the sweetest scent.

Shares.—Always go shares."

R.F.

HEART OF MINE.

(Being a rather hysterical contribution from our Analytical Novelist.)

Friday.—I suppose one never realises till one is actually dead how nearly dead one can be without actually being it. You see what I mean? No. Well, how blithely, how recklessly one rollicks through life, fondly believing that one is in the best of health, in the prime of condition, and all the time one is the unconscious victim of some fatal infirmity or disease. I mean, take my own case. I went to see my doctor in order to be cured of hay fever. He examined my heart. He made me take off my shirt. He hammered my chest; he rapped my ribs with his knuckles to see if they sounded hollow. I don't know why he did this, but I think he was at one time attached to a detective and has got into the habit of looking for secret passages and false panels and so on.

Anyhow, he suspected my chest, and he listened at it for so long that any miscreant who had been concealed in it would have had to give himself away by coughing or blowing his nose.

After a long time he said, "Your heart's dilated. You want a complete rest. Don't work. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't eat. Don't do anything. Take plenty of exercise. Sit perfectly still. Don't mope. Don't rush about. Take this before and after every meal. Only don't have any meals." I laughed at him. I knew my heart was perfectly sound, much sounder than most men's. I went home. I didn't even have the prescription made up.

Saturday.—Now comes the tragic thing. That very night I realised that he was right. There is something wrong with my heart. It is too long. It is too wide. It is too thick. It is out of place. It would be difficult to say exactly where the measurements are wrong, but one has a sort of sense ... you know?... One can feel that it is too large.... A swollen feeling.... Somehow I never felt this before; I never even felt that it was there ... but now I always know that it is there—trying to get out.... I put my hand on it and can feel it definitely expanding—like a football bladder. Sometimes I think it wants to get out at my collar-bone; sometimes I think it will blow out under my bottom rib; sometimes some other way. It is terrible....

I have had the prescription made up.

Sunday.—The way it beats! Sometimes very fast and heavy and emphatic, like a bad barrage of 5.9's. Fortunately my watch has a second-hand, so that I can time it—forty-five to the half-minute, ninety-five to the full minute. Then I know that the end is very near; everyone knows that the normal rate for a healthy adult heart is seventy-two. Then sometimes it goes very slow, very dignified and faint, as when some great steamer glides in at slow speed to her anchorage, and the engines thump in a subdued and profound manner very far away, or as when at night the solemn tread of some huge policeman is heard, remote and soft and dilated—I mean dilatory, or as when—But you see what I mean.

Monday.—How was it, I wonder, that all this was hidden from me for so long? And now what am I to do? I am a doomed man. With a heart like this I cannot last long. I have resigned my clubs; I have given up my work. I can think of nothing but this dull pain, this heavy throbbing at my side. My work—ha! Yesterday I met another young doctor at tea. He asked me if there was any "murmur." I said I did not