built, well, though rather showily, dressed, his trousers tight below the knee, and loose above, his cut-away coat, bright-colored necktie, and low-crowned hat, had a horsey aspect; a broad, sun-burnt face, with well-trimmed, but coarse, red moustaches and hair, a blunt, resolute nose, sharp, light eyes, the lids puckered, as if from trying to look at strong sunlight, gave him an air of intense knowingness; all these seemed somewhat familiar to Glynn, as was also a certain expression of lazy good-nature, which softened the ruggedness of his aspect.

While Glynn was struggling to answer the question with which we have all puzzled ourselves at one time or another—"Where have I seen that face?"—its owner stopped suddenly before him, exclaiming, "Mr. Glynn! if I am not greatly mistaken; I hope I see you well, sir."

The voice and accent, which were peculiar, neither French, nor English, nor American, though a little of all, with an undertone of something that was none of the three, brought back to Glynn, as by magic, certain passages of his life ten years before—a big, crowded, gambling saloon in the Far West, dim with tobacco smoke, and hot with gas-lights, reeking with the fumes of strong drink, and echoing with the din of strange oaths, suddenly rose from out the caverns of memory, a confusion of struggling figures, a hand-to-hand conflict, the man before him gallantly backing him in a desperate fight to reach the door.

"Mr. Merrick, I had no idea you were at this side of the Atlantic!"

"I have been more than once at this side of the Atlantic since we met last. You know all good Yankees hope to go to Paris not only when they die, but a considerable few times before that event. I'm right glad to meet you; and, before going further, I beg to observe that I have assumed" (he said "ashumed") "another name since I had the pleasure of seeing you: or rather, I have reverted to my original patronymic, which was a deuced deal too good for the raff amongst whom we were temporarily engulfed, to mouth. Allow me"—with an elegant air he drew forth a note-book, and presented a card engraved, "Captain Lambert, U.S.C., 27 Rue de L'Evêque." "Times have changed for the better with me, and I am now established here permanently."

"Glad to hear it, Captain Lambert," said Glynn, amused by the rencontre. Then glancing at the card, "You are no longer on active service?"

"No, in a sense, no. Life is always more or less a battle; but for the present the bugles sing truce, and I am enjoying well-earned rest in the society of my daughter and only child, to whom I shall be delighted to introduce an esteemed comrade, if you will allow me to say so."

"You are very good! I shall be happy to make the young lady's acquaintance."

"And yourself, sir? I fancy you have been looking up too, there's an air of success, of solid respectability, eh? worthy of a churchwarden, about you!"

"Yes, I may say I am now a sober citizen of famous London——"

"I believe you, and I am right glad to hear it. I shall yet salute you as Lord Mayor of London. 'Turn again Whittington,' hey? Where do you put up? I'll call and get you to fix a day to dine with us, but for the present I must bid you good-morning, for I promised to meet my daughter at the flower-market, and I never keep her waiting. Eh! by Jove, here she is."

Struck by the sudden joyous lighting up and softening of his interlocutor's eyes, Glynn turned to see the cause, and found himself face to face with the beauty of Auteuil.

Seldom had he been so surprised, and it must be confessed shocked, as when he saw this charming ideal creature smile back affectionately to the rowdy-looking nomad who claimed her as his child, whom he remembered as one of an adventurous gang, ready alike with dice-box or revolver, barely ten years ago.

"I thought you had forgotten me," she said, slipping her hand through his arm.

"Forgotten you? No, faith! you must blame my friend here, if I am a trifle late. This is an old acquaintance, my dear; we have faced death together more than once; and a better, pluckier comrade no man need wish for. Mr. Glynn—Miss Lambert."

Glynn raised his hat with profound respect.

"He has already befriended me," she returned, gazing at him with a pretty, surprised, bewildered look in her large eyes. "I should still have been waiting to cross there at Madeleine, had he not escorted me."

Lambert gave a quick, questioning glance at his daughter's open smiling face, and then exclaimed, "I am infinitely obliged to you, sir; infinitely, begad! I tell you what, Elsie, you mustn't be out so late in the day by yourself. Why don't you take the bonne with you, or wait till I come in."

"Oh, it is such waste of time waiting for a chaperon on a fine day; but we shall be too late to secure places if we delay."

"Yes, we had better be jogging. Can you dine with us to-day? And we'll have a talk over old times, and my girl will give us a song or two. Pot luck, my dear fellow, but you shan't starve."

"Many thanks, I am engaged unfortunately," returned Glynn, half-pleased, half-regretful that he had a real excuse ready.

"Well, to-morrow then, at six, sharp, and we will go and hear the new operette at the Comique after."

"You are very good. I shall be most happy," said Glynn, with an irresistible impulse as if some voice, not his own, answered for him.

"Well, good-bye for the present. By the way, where do you hang out? What's your hotel? Wagram?—very good." He swept off his hat in continental style, and his daughter bestowed a bow and smile upon Glynn which conveyed to him in some occult manner the impression that it pleased her to think he was a friend of her father.

How in the name of all that was contradictory did he come to have such a daughter? From the crown of her head to her dainty shoes she looked thoroughly a gentlewoman. More distinguished than fashionable in style, and so delightfully tranquil in pose and manner. "I hate chattering, animated women," thought Glynn, with that readiness to condemn everything different from the attraction of the moment, peculiar to the stronger and more logical sex.

It was too dreadful to think of so fair a creature, who looked the incarnation of high-toned purity, being surrounded by a swarm of sharpers—for that Lambert alias Merrick, and a dozen other names probably, could have ever settled down to sober, honest work, seemed impossible.

Glynn dived deep into the recesses of his memory, recalling all the circumstances of his former acquaintance with Merrick or Lambert, and necessarily reviewing his own life also.

He had lost his parents in boyhood, but was left well provided for, and had been carefully educated, taking a creditable degree at Oxford shortly before coming of age. Then came a spell of wandering, of high play, of rage for costly excitement, which, with a love of speculation, beggared him in a few years. This climax found him in New York, and for a considerable time he was put to strange shifts to make out a living, for he would not beg, he was too true a gentleman to stoop to dishonesty; but he was by no means ashamed to dig, or to do any work worthy an honorable man. During his desperate struggle with fortune he joined an exploring expedition, and found himself among queer companions in one of those wonderful improvised far-western towns, which spring up, mushroom-like, almost in a night, having spent the little money he had scraped together in his attempt to reach it, after the failure and dispersion of the prospecting party he had been induced to join.

On the road he had fallen in with Merrick, whom he found friendly, helpful, and not without gleams of good and of decency. So for a week or two they kept together. Fortune befriended Glynn at the gambling-tables, till the row occurred with which Merrick was so inseparably associated, and which arose out of Glynn's extraordinary run of luck, at which the mixed company of miners, explorers, desperadoes and ruffians