of Lincoln's Inn Fields. A beautiful woman—yes; but of a cruel, hard, revengeful, patrician type. Her stretched-out hand, as she loosely holds the filmy reins which guide her gorgeous peacocks, seems to me full of cruel determination. Take away the peacocks, the clouds, and the car, and she might stand for a Roman Vestal with her thumb determinedly pointed downwards, indicating to the vanquished gladiator, who looks towards her in vain appeal, that his last fight is fought, and that he must die.

I took up the little box. I am pretty well known at Messrs. Christie's; for, though I am an infrequent buyer, I do a little in the descriptive way in a few of the exclusive literary journals, and I am, I repeat, well known in King Street, St. James', as a virtuoso. Great amateurs are very glad indeed to obtain my opinion, but the dealers don't like me. They say I know too much. I took up the little box, I say; but the extremely ingenious secret spring, as the catalogue called it, was no secret to me, for many such clever trifles had passed through my hands before. I detected it at once, and, on pressing it, the bottom of the box, which was made over a century ago, sprang open, and disclosed the triumph of Petitot. It was a shepherdess, a dear little blonde shepherdess in striped satin.

There she sat, upon a moss-covered rock, a dainty little figure in her high-heeled blue shoes, her shapely ankles crossed in a rather studied pose; the rounded figure, that of a girl bursting into womanhood; the complexion, a delicate pink and white; the lips full and pouting, the eyes large, soft, blue, and innocent; and the lovely hair flowing in waves of molten gold over the plump white shoulders, and curling in rich profusion down to the dimpled elbow. The artist had not had the heart to depict the hair as powdered. The face smiled out at me, as the charming original had doubtless smiled upon the fortunate possessor of the snuff-box, a hundred and twenty years ago. Opposite the picture was the oval case, which contained one silky lock of glossy golden hair; and underneath it was written the well-known line, delicately engraved upon the gold in a fine Italian hand:

“Phyllis is my only joy.”

I chuckled to myself, and I hummed over mechanically the rather hackneyed lines :

Phyllis is my only joy.

Faithless as the winds and seas,

Sometimes forward, sometimes coy,
Yet she never fails to please."

And then the whole story came back to me, the whole miserable story of outraged Juno, handsome Jack Hayes of Hill's Horse, and the hapless Phyllis, who was his only joy. Worse luck for her, poor child!

Let us go back to the time when Julia Walton sat waiting in the boudoir at The Moat to give handsome Captain Hayes the formal interview he had demanded. The boudoir was a triumph of the decorative art of the period. It was a lofty room ; the walls were of white and gold; Corinthian columns, with gilded capitals, divided the sides of the room into appropriate spaces; two huge mirrors, an extremely costly luxury in those days, added to the grandiose appearance of the apartment, and increased the idea of its size. Between and above the pillars were elaborately carved arched mouldings, which served as frames to allegorical groups in high relief. Portières of the tapestry of Gobelins half hid the doors, with their formal ornamentation of gilded fruit and flowers. An elegant spinet in Amboyna wood and ormolu, with a rather florid-looking harp, gave evidence at the same time of the combined wealth and taste of the owner.

A large square of Ambusson carpet covered the centre of

the floor, while a polished border of inlaid planking acted as an effective setting to the thick blue-and-white triumph of the weaver's art. In the open fireplace of red marble smouldered, upon brass andirons, a cheerful fire of wood, before which in drowsy happiness dozed a big Persian cat, his neck decorated with a broad scarlet ribbon. The one great bow-window looked out upon the old-fashioned, formal garden of The Moat, with its clipped hedges, and its rose bushes which were now just breaking into leaf. The coved ceiling of the room represented an eighteenthcentury idea of heaven, and little Amorini danced merrily upon the clouds which formed the base, smiling inanely at the occupant of the apartment, and evidently thinking of nothing at all.

She sat bolt upright, for
Her hair was powdered

By her fireside sat the orphan heiress of The Moat. people sat in chairs in those days, sprawling being unknown. and surmounted by a little cap of dainty, filmy Indian muslin, while a black silk kerchief set off her regular and handsome features, being tied beneath the chin in the strange fashion of the day; a lace fichu was demurely crossed over her bosom, and secured by a tiny brooch of big diamonds set in silver. The lady wore what in those days was called a mantilla, a sort of little cape of black satin, and a gown of thick pale blue corded silk. Her little foot, in its blue satin sandal, beat impatiently upon the footstool, and she took up a perfumed note and anxiously regarded it.

"It's a bad omen," she thought, as she looked at the great ormolu timepiece. "A lover should be impatient, and the lady becomingly coy. I fear the rôles are inverted." And then she sighed.

"Captain Hayes, madam," said the liveried serving-man, as he flung open the door; and Captain Jack Hayes, of Hill's Horse, smilingly and confidently entered the room, with the air of an Alexander.

He was in full uniform, for in those days our officers thought it no shame to wear the king's colours upon all occasions. I needn't describe the handsome uniform worn in 1760 by those rollicking blades, the dashing officers of General Hill's regiment of Horse. We've seen Captain Macheath, we've seen the portrait of Colonel Tarleton, and we know the traditional costume of Jack Sheppard. Captain Jack Hayes looked very much like Macheath, Tarleton and Jack Sheppard rolled into one. The Captain was clad in scarlet; the flaps of his regimental coat, which was buttoned to the throat, were turned back, showing the white silk lining; a tie of valuable Mechlin lace was knotted beneath the leathern stock, which existed even in those days; his well pipe-clayed belts were crossed upon his manly chest. Of course he wore breeches and boots; and as he popped his neat little gold-trimmed black three-cornered hat under his arm, he clapped his heels together smartly, which made his big brass spurs resound with a martial clash; and then he made the lady a profound obeisance, one of those killing bows for which the officers of Hill's regiment of Horse were so deservedly celebrated.

"Madam, your most obedient,” he exclaimed.

The lady, on her part, had risen from her chair, and made the gentleman a low curtsey in response to his salute. They were always bowing and curtseying in those days; now, when a young gentleman is about to make to a young lady a formal offer of his heart and hand, they probably commence the interview by carelessly nodding to each other. I think I like the old way best; it's more deliberate.

But handsome Captain Hayes didn't confine himself to bows. He possessed himself of the hand of the heiress of The Moat in a surprisingly rapid manner, and gallantly pressed it to his lips.

"Madam, I take the present opportunity of thanking you for your condescension in granting me this interview;" and, still retaining the tips of her fingers betwixt his own, he led the mistress of The Moat to a seat.

"It is I, Captain Hayes, who am the obleeged, for I am taking Mars away from his duty. By rights, Captain Hayes, you ought now to be engaged in drilling your troopers and turning the heads of the Maidstone belles."

"Miss Walton, you are cruel, but you are not taking me away from duty; you are only permitting me to fulfil the natural, function in which we men o' war do most egregiously delight. Where could be a more fitting place for Mars than worshipping at the shrine of Venus?"

"Captain Jack, methinks you do protest too much."

"Don't I know, Miss Walton, that you look upon a good deal of what I say as froth; but, believe me, there's not a bit of falsehood in the whole matter."

And now the Captain cleared his throat. Miss Walton's eyes sparkled with suppressed amusement. Their glances met. The lady slightly blushed, and the gentleman covered his evident discomfiture by producing his snuff-box, which he first politely offered to Miss Walton, and then inhaled a pinch of the odoriferous sternutatory.

1

A

Captain Hayes had been a very successful pleader in the Court of Love. young fellow standing six feet two, who is a captain in a fashionable cavalry regiment, a great, big, broad, brawny, swashbuckling Don Juan, a good-natured, devil-may-care enough young fellow in the main, Captain Jack had flung his guineas about with reckless profusion, until I am sorry to say he had no more guineas left to fling. He drank, he swore, and he gambled, as was the jovial but wicked custom in those days. When I say that Captain Hayes never went to bed sober, I am merely pointing out that Captain Jack did as the other officers of Hill's Horse did, and that he drank more than he ought for the good of the house and the honour of the regiment. But Captain Hayes was a magnificent specimen of the cavalry officer, and healthy and fresh-looking to boot; his hand never trembled one bit from his overnight's potations; his complexion was as clear as that of a young girl. We must remember that the Captain was only eight-and-twenty, and that though he sat up late o' nights, declaring that he

"would the canakin clink, clink, clink.

A soldier's a man ;

A life's but a span,

Why, then, let a soldier drink, drink, drink,"

yet, after all, he didn't seem very much the worse for it; for the Captain would turn

up

the first thing in the morning and have a good give-and-take bout at quarter-staff with Sergeant Chopper, who was the master-at-arms of Hill's regiment of Horse. There were no plastron pads and basket-work helmets then these are all an invention of our later and more degenerate day; it was good hard thwacking, and no quarter. Captain Jack Hayes, too, in his red coat and jack boots, would show up at the numerous hunting-meets on his great horse Rodomont, and the two big animals would ride straight enough, and there was no shirking about either of them. Of course Jack Hayes, like most young cavalry officers of the period, was an extravagant young fool; but he was a good-looking fool, all the same, and if he did chuck barmaids, fruit-girls and flower-girls under the chin, he always accompanied the caress with an eleemosynary crown for the purchase of cap-ribbons. The fine figure of the scarlet-coated captain was well known among the beaux who sat and swaggered in rows upon the stage of Covent Garden and Old Drury. Statira and Roxana were reported to have slapped faces over him; but as those two ladies were ever ready to slap faces, on the very slightest provocation, or upon no provocation at all, to my mind at least Captain Jack's reputation remained fair and unspotted in the matter. The fact is that all the women in and out of society made violent love to him, and the rascal was quite aware of the fact. But Captain Jack Hayes chucking the flower-girls under the chin or applauding the Rival Queens, and Captain Hayes having a formal interview with Miss Julia Walton in her own boudoir at The Moat, were two very different persons.

"Madam," said Captain Jack, having screwed his courage up to the sticking point, "I fear that you may never forgive the presumption of the proposition that I am about to make to you. There's only one thing I shall ask you to believe, dear lady, when I swear to you, on my honour as a man" (and he looked very honest and manly indeed as he said the words), "that I am actuated by no mercenary motive in daring to press my suit to you. You are a rich heiress, Miss Walton, and I am only a poor soldier of fortune, with my sword for my property; for I feel bound in honour to tell you that I am a penniless man. The dearest ambition of my life, Miss Walton -may I say Julia ?-is to pass it at your feet."

Here the lady rose, and Captain Hayes flung himself gracefully upon one knee.