her father, putting a cigar in his mouth, and sauntering off for his usual visit to the stables.

But Helen dipped into the waste-paper basket, and extracted therefrom the two torn halves of Frank Vanguard's letter, which she pieced together and perused attentively. Then she folded them carefully in their envelope, also torn, and placed the whole in her apron pocket, ere she rang the bell and sailed off on her daily avocations; from all which I infer that, notwithstanding her denial, she had thought about the writer's good looks, and was, at least, perfectly satisfied that his eyes had not the remotest tendency to a squint!

CHAPTER IV.

AMAZONS.

"My dear, the Amazons were quite right." It was Mrs. Lascelles who spoke, sitting in the easiest chair of her boudoir, and listening to an account of those remarkable women, read aloud by Miss Ross. The ladies had not been studying Herodotus, amusing and improbable as are the anecdotes of that gossiping historian, but took their information from an author of later date, less quaint, more voluminous, and perhaps as little to be trusted.

Miss Ross shut her book and yawned. "I think they should have gone in for man-hating altogether," she replied. "I am dead against half-measures, and I never can see why you shouldn't kick people because they are down!"

"I wish I had always thought so," said the other, with something like a sigh. "We poor women must learn to take care of ourselves. Well, I am wiser now, and really, Jin, I think it's partly owing to you."

Miss Ross was still thinking of the Amazons. "Why didn't they kill their prisoners at once?" she asked. "It would have been more dignified, and more—what shall I say? more manly altogether."

"I think the other plan was better," answered Mrs. Lascelles. "You see, they kept them long enough to make them unhappy, if they had no other motive, and then put them out of the way just as the captives were beginning to get attached to their conquerors. They don't seem to have minded mutilating themselves; I dare say that was very natural. Jin, I think I should like to have been an Amazon."

"You're too soft-hearted," answered the other. "Now I could condemn a man to death with less compunction than you would show in ordering a child to be whipped. I have no pity for the nobler sex, as they call themselves. 'War to the knife!' that's my motto!"

"I think I have been used badly enough," said Mrs. Lascelles, looking the while extremely prosperous and self-satisfied. "I am sure my early life has not been the happier for my relations with the lords of the creation. Two or three false lovers, my dear, and a bad husband, are not calculated to raise one's opinion of the race; but I am not so bitter as you are, by many degrees."

"Heaven forbid!" replied Miss Ross, while a shadow passed across her dark, expressive face. "I should be sorry for any woman who could feel as I do; sorrier still if she had learnt her lesson as I did."

She was silent for a few minutes, looking back, as it seemed, with horror and self-aversion, into the depths of a cruel and hideous past; a past that had unsexed and made her what she was now; that had caused her to originate one of the strangest compacts ever entered into by two women, and enthusiastically to abide by her own share in the agreement.

Mrs. Lascelles and Miss Ross had struck up a firm alliance, offensive and defensive, with the object of persistently carrying out a system of aggressive warfare against the masculine half of the human race. The elder and richer lady had proposed to the younger and poorer, that she should take up her abode with her, and be to her as a sister. In the world, Mrs. Lascelles gave out that Miss Ross was her cousin; nor did a large circle of London acquaintances think it worth while to verify the assumed relationship. They saw two pretty women, living together in a good house, remarkably well dressed, driving the neatest carriage, and the truest steppers in London, going out little, but to "good places," and were quite willing to accept their own account of themselves, without making further inquiry. Everybody knew who Mrs. Lascelles was (it would have denoted rustic ignorance not to be aware that she had missed becoming Lady St. Giles), and, after the first week or two, the companion who went about with her was no longer "a Miss Ross," but had established her position as "Miss Ross—clever girl, with black eyes—cousin, you know, of dear Rose."

So these two might be seen in the Park twice a week; at the Opera once; occasionally at a ball; more frequently at those unaccountable functions called "drums," where hundreds of people congregate in a space intended for tens, and the world seems engaged, somewhat wearily and with customary ill success, in looking about for its wife.

But it was Miss Ross who had struck out the happy idea on which hung the whole strength and motive of the alliance.

She it was who suggested, that at all times, and under all conditions, as much harm should be done to the peace of mind of every man within reach as could be accomplished by two fascinating women, with all the advantages of good fortune, good looks, good taste, and good position.

"You've got the money, dear," said she to her patroness, "and most of the beauty, in my opinion, the friends, the foothold, and the rest of it; but, I think, I've got the energy and the obstinacy, and my share of the brains; above all, the rancour that can carry us through any opposition in the world!"

So they started on the war-path at once, even before Easter; and a very pleasant "fillibustering" expedition they made of it. Not many scalps were taken perhaps at first; but the defences of the white man were examined and broken through, his habits studied, his weapons blunted, his mode of strategy laid bare. By the middle of May, sundry Pale-Faces were going about with strange sensations under their waistcoats, that only wanted a little chafing to become serious disease of the heart. The aggravation was sure to follow, else wherefore were dresses of exquisite fabric contracted, gloves and bonnets sent home, coils of fragrant hair laid fold on fold, smooth, shining, and insidious as the involutions of the great Serpent himself? It was difficult to say which of these two Amazons could boast the highest score of victims. Perhaps Mrs. Lascelles proved most successful in the massacre of middle-aged adorers, while young boys and old gentlemen fell prostrate without effort, willing captives to the devilry and seductions of Miss Ross.

Amongst the eldest of these, and the wisest, in his own opinion, was a certain Mr. Groves, a relative by marriage of Mrs. Lascelles, who persisted in calling him "Uncle Joseph," a name by which he soon became known in the circle of her intimates. This gentleman, at a mature period of life, when years are counted by scores and romance is supposed to have made way for comfort and self-indulgence, found his defences suddenly exposed to the merciless attacks of Miss Ross. He liked it uncommonly at first, flattering himself that at his age flirtation was a harmless and pleasing excitement, which he could leave off when it became oppressive or inconvenient, and that, if worst came to worst, he was in good hands,—the girl seemed so attached to him, so confiding, so sincere! Uncle Joseph used to rub his bald head in his cooler moments, and wonder fully as much at her as himself; but, with the lapse of years, he had at least learned that it is not well to analyse our pleasures too minutely; and he generally summed up with the philosophical reflection, that there was no accounting for taste. If the girl liked a man old enough to be her father, why it only showed she was a girl of sense, who knew the world, "Ay, and more than that, sir, a girl who knows her own mind!"

By degrees, however, Uncle Joseph, having, it is to be presumed, forgotten the tender experiences of