secured a special compartment on the express to London for Mrs. Downs and her niece and himself, with one adjoining for their maid and Nolan. It was a beautiful day, and Carlton sat with his eyes fixed upon the passing fields and villages, exclaiming with pleasure from time to time at the white roads and the feathery trees and hedges, and the red roofs of the inns and square towers of the village churches.

"Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren't they?" he said. "You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of them? She looks just as though she were posing for a picture for an illustrated paper. She couldn't pick flowers from a barbed-wire fence, could she? And there would probably be a tramp along the road somewhere to frighten her; and see--the chap in knickerbockers farther down the road leaning on the stile. I am sure he is waiting for her; and here comes a coach," he ran on. "Don't the red wheels look well against the hedges? It's a pretty little country, England, isn't it?--like a private park or a model village. I am glad to get back to it--I am glad to see the three-and-six signs with the little slanting dash between the shillings and pennies. Yes, even the steam-rollers and the man with the red flag in front are welcome."

"I suppose," said Mrs. Downs, "it's because one has been so long on the ocean that the ride to London seems so interesting. It always pays me for the entire trip. Yes," she said, with a sigh, "in spite of the patent-medicine signs they have taken to putting up all along the road. It seems a pity they should adopt our bad habits instead of our good ones."

"They are a bit slow at adopting anything," commented Carlton. "Did you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as scarce in London as they are in Timbuctoo? Why, I saw an electric-light plant put up in a Western town in three days once; there were over a hundred burners in one saloon, and the engineer who put them up told me in confidence that--"

What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never disclosed, for at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a sudden sharp exclamation.

"Oh, Mr. Carlton," she exclaimed, breathlessly, "listen to this!" She had been reading one of the dozen papers which Carlton had purchased at the station, and was now shaking one of them at him, with her eyes fixed on the open page.

"My dear Edith," remonstrated her aunt, "Mr. Carlton was telling us--"

"Yes, I know," exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, "but this interests him much more than electric lights. Who do you think is in London?" she cried, raising her eyes to his, and pausing for proper dramatic effect. "The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!"

"No?" shouted Carlton.

"Yes," Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone. "Listen. 'The Queen's Drawing-room'--em--e--m--'on her right was the Princess of Wales'--em--m. Oh, I can't find it--no--yes, here it is. 'Next to her stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald. She wore a dress of white silk, with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur. Ornaments--emeralds and diamonds; orders--Victoria and Albert, jubilee Commemoration Medal, Coburg and Gotha, and Hohenwald and Grasse.'"

"By Jove!" cried Carlton, excitedly. "I say, is that really there? Let me see it, please, for myself."

Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the paragraph, and picking up another, began a search down its columns.

"You are right," exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; "it's she, sure enough. And here I've been within two hours of her and didn't know it?"

Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had discovered a vein of gold.

"Yes, and here she is again," she said, "in the Gentlewoman: 'The Queen's dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few violet ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her mother's side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by Princess Ena's accident. Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a light brown jacket and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary touch to a picture which Londoners would be glad to look upon more often.'"

Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and with his eyes open wide from excitement. He presented so unusual an appearance of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her niece for some explanation. "The young lady seems to interest you," said she, tentatively.

"She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs," cried Carlton, "and I was going all the way to Grasse to see her, and now it turns out that she is here in England, within a few miles of us." He turned and waved his hands at the passing landscape. "Every minute brings us nearer together."

"And you didn't feel it in the air!" mocked Miss Morris, laughing. "You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you where to find the woman you love."

Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and frowned intently. "Now I have got to begin all over again and readjust things," he said. "We might have guessed she would be in London, on account of this royal wedding. It is a great pity it isn't later in the season, when there would be more things going on and more chances of meeting her. Now they will all be interested in themselves, and, being extremely exclusive, no one who isn't a cousin to the bridegroom or an Emperor would have any chance at all. Still, I can see her! I can look at her, and that's something."

"It is better than a photograph, anyway," said Miss Morris.

"They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or they will stop at Brown's," said Carlton. "All royalties go to Brown's. I don't know why, unless it is because it is so expensive; or maybe it is expensive because royalties go there; but, in any event, if they are not at the palace, that is where they will be, and that is where I shall have to go too."

When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed Nolan to take his things to Brown's Hotel, but not to unload them until he had arrived. Then he drove with the ladies to Cox's, and saw them settled there. He promised to return at once to dine, and to tell them what he had discovered in his absence. "You've got to help me in this, Miss Morris," he said, nervously. "I am beginning to feel that I am not worthy of her."

"Oh yes, you are!" she said, laughing; "but don't forget that 'it's not the lover who comes to woo, but the lover's WAY of wooing,' and that 'faint heart'--and the rest of it."

"Yes, I know," said Carlton, doubtfully; "but it's a bit sudden, isn't it?"

"Oh, I am ashamed of you! You are frightened."

"No, not frightened, exactly," said the painter. "I think it's just natural emotion."

As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet stretching from the doorway of Brown's Hotel out across the sidewalk to a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about apparently assisting several gentlemen to get into it. This and another carriage and Nolan's four-wheeler blocked the way; but without waiting for them to move up, Carlton leaned out of his hansom and called the bareheaded man to its side.

"Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?" he asked. The bareheaded man answered that he was.

"All right, Nolan," cried Carlton. "They can take in the trunks."

Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to alight. "That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said, pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second carriage, "are his sisters, the Princesses."

Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other in the air.

"The deuce they are!" he exclaimed; "and which is--" he began, eagerly, and then remembering himself, dropped back on the cushions of the hansom.

He broke into the little dining-room at Cox's in so excited a state that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-mouthed in astonished disapproval. Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris had just come down stairs.

"I have seen her!"