She was staring in a fishmonger's at the new and wonderful members of the finny tribe displayed there, pointing out some cockles with her parasol, and saying, "What on earth's that? Is it good to eat?" when a gay, childish voice fell upon her ear. Turning, she saw a very pretty but woefully ragged little French girl. In her hand was a tambourine, and this she shook while she made little forced, unmirthful leaps and bounds in the street, and sang a merry air with a mournful face. Nina laughed, and the child laughed and began capering again, this time with more spirit, and sang in her shrill treble :

Je suis Polonaise, oui-da!

Je me nomme Lodoïska,

Je me nomme Lodo, Lois, Loka, Lodoïska, Je suis née à Cracovie.

Je suis Polonaise, oui-da!

Je me nomme Lodoïska,

Je me nomme Lodo, Lois, Loka, Lodoïska.

Highly diverted and pleased, Nina cried out, "Oh, how funny! That 's splendid!" and gave her a shilling, whereupon the little minstrel's face flushed with pleasure, and the next moment she capered away.

It had been Nina's intention, of course, to keep in the immediate neighborhood of the hotel. She unknowingly wandered off. "I'll just see what there is down there," or "I'll just go around the corner a minute," she had said. She had no idea, either, how time was running away, because she was amused, interested. Nor did she particularly notice a little man who went wherever she went, sometimes behind her, sometimes in front of her, sometimes on the opposite side of the street, now sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, not seeing anything apparently, now walking briskly as if on business of importance, but always keeping her in view.

Coming upon a boy trundling a small handcart heaped high with immense oranges, Nina stopped him and said: "Here! What do you ask for 'em? A pound apiece, I guess."

"Oh, no, miss, only a penny; and just be pleased to look at the size of 'em. Pumpkins, almost, and sweet and juicy-my heyes! 'Andle 'em, miss, if I may make so bold, and feel the weight of 'em," said the boy, and began

juggling with them, and giving out a fearfully shrill, discordant squawk, that only the initiated could have recognized as "Fi-i-ne Sicily oran-ges!"

"Very well, I'll take six," said Nina, who was very fond of oranges; and she might have seen the little man brush by her as she opened her purse and paid for them. The little man could see that in the purse were three gold pieces and some half-crowns and shillings. Nina next walked through a small park or square filled with some stunted trees and shrubs, and thronged with nursery-maids and babies from the houses near by. Coming out, she turned to the left, then to the right, and was midway in an extremely long stretch of unbroken street bordered by handsome houses, when down came the rain,- never very far off in England. Dismayed, Nina looked up, around, about her, seeing nothing but the little man, who had still followed. He now advanced and said very civilly:

"If you'll come up this way, miss, w'ich I am coachman to a fambly living right there in the third 'ouse, and I lives near by, me and my wife, you can have shelter, and welcome." There was a hansom standing in front of the house he had pointed out. Grandy's parasol did not afford much shelter. Nina had on her best holiday attire. For a second she hesitated, and then said, with a sharp glance at him, “Go with you? No, indeed. I'm not so stupid."

If she had looked back she would have seen that the bogus coachman was still lurking in the neighborhood. On and on she went. She tried to retrace the many turns she had made, but every moment became more confused. A plucky child, however, she did not get frightened even when, after about twenty minutes of walking, staring, and puzzling, she found herself in a short, narrow lane dimly lit by lamps, at the back of Portlington Crescent. Here she was suddenly confronted by the little man who had followed her.

"Well," said Nina coolly, "what do you want? Everybody I meet seems to want something." For answer there came a sudden blow on the head, her purse was snatched from her, and so was her parasol; but not until she had given the man a sharp return stroke with it.

Nina shrieked loudly and lustily for help. A policeman was not far away, and ran to her as the man ran away.

"Catch him! Hit him! Hold him! Never mind me!" cried Nina in great excitement, intent first on revenge. But what huge Policeman X did was to pick up her hat and the oranges, listen to her story, take her home, and turn her over to the wailing Mrs. Andrews.

Marian heard Nina's story, and tipped the good-hearted giant who had come to the rescue. He said respectfully, "Thank you. It ought never to have been allowed, miss"; and went his way.

This was what Marian thought, and it was she who heard all from the culprit, comforted her, and forbore to point any morals or tell any tales.

"Oh, Cousin Marian, this is the meanest, horridest, wickedest, cheatingest place that ever was!" said Nina in conclusion. "I've lost my purse and my parasol, and that man hit me; and—just think! those beautiful oranges that I bought had been boiled to make 'em all swell up and look big! That policeman and I threw them all away. I've been fooled by these scamps! Oh, boo-hoo, boohoo!"

CHAPTER VIII.

SIGHT-SEEING.

THE day after Nina's adventures in search of amusement had turned out so alarmingly, Mrs. Andrews, made worse by the anxiety she had undergone, desired Marian to send for the great Sir Wilkinson Jebb, whose fame, as physician to the Queen and half the royalties of Europe, had crossed the Atlantic.

A portly, fresh-faced, spectacled gentleman of about sixty, of the most dignified (not to say pompous) bearing, drove up to the hotel that afternoon in a brougham of much quiet elegance, and was duly announced to Mrs. Andrews. Having seated himself in the only comfortable chair the room boasted, he listened with the calmness of his profession to that lady's voluble account of herself. His expressionless eyes were fixed upon her face as she talked, and he fidgeted when, after the manner of some patients, she went into the history of her ailment, the opinions

of previous doctors, the similar and dissimilar cases of the same malady that had come under her notice; then, catching Marian's eye, he said with reserve that there seemed to be " a slight feverish tendency," rapidly wrote a prescription, ordered Mrs. Andrews to stay in bed and be absolutely quiet for several days, made a few courteous, stilted remarks about the weather and the topics of the day, and with a profoundly polite salaam was on his way downstairs when he met Nina.

"You still up, my child?" he said in surprise, on encountering Nina's fixed gaze. "How is it that you are not in bed? Anxious about your grandmother, I suppose. You need not be, I assure you. She is doing admirably. You may go to bed now."

"It is n't your business to send me to bed," said Miss Irrepressible, tartly.

"Ha, ha! Very good, very good! I'd be precious glad to put myself there, I know; but we doctors are like postmen, always on the move," said he. "But you should keep early hours, you know. You look fagged and delicate."

Well, moving round does n't seem to make you look delicate. I like to be thin, and I'm very well, and one should n't make personal remarks," retorted Nina severely - and consistently.

Sir Wilkinson's face was a study on hearing this. Displeased astonishment at finding himself so familiarly accosted was followed by a puzzled expression, and that by an increase of color and a stiffening of the whole figure. "Oh, that is your opinion, is it?" he said to her huffily; and then to Marian at the door, "Your young friend is-" He did not finish the sentence, but brushed his hat with his hand, and with his head on one side gazed reflectively down upon Nina, smiled in a mechanical, professional sort of way, finally, and added: "Odd child, very! Delightful! Ah! Oh, yes. You will see that water is given with the mixture, Miss Brewster; but unless there should be some very decided development - ah! where is my cane? Ah! Good night."

In a few days Mrs. Andrews was betterthat is, her fever had left her; but her convalescence proved a tedious affair, and being or

dered to keep her room for some time, she proceeded to abandon herself to invalidism. She sent for some books, saying it would be a good time to read.

"It is dreadful my being laid up like this now, Marian," she said. "Everything seems to go wrong. However, now that we are here, you will have to take Nina about and show her everything that she cares to see. Find out what will interest her. I can't discover that she wants to see anything particularly."

Nothing loath, Marian sat down, got out her guide-books and maps, and made out a list of the most important sights.

"Does n't it sound delicious?" she said, after reading the list to Nina. "Now we shall see how good your eyes and ears are, Miss Nina! We are going to have a glorious time of it, a feast of sight-seeing. We are going to see London, and we are not going to kill ourselves, either, doing it, but to take it all systematically and quietly and pleasantly day by day. And in future just think what it will mean to us when somebody speaks of London!"

Accordingly, every day after this, after a comfortable breakfast, they "went into Committee of Two," as Marian said, and decided what particular plum they would take from this rich cake, as their share for that day. Then, having decided, they would start in high spirits and perfect accord to see this or that notable sight.

Nina had already had some experience of Marian's practical sagacity, and had felt, without being quite conscious of it, the patience, sympathy, comprehension, and justice that had marked her conduct throughout. She was now to feel the charm of association with a fine and cultured mind under circumstances that naturally brought out its breadth and resources to say nothing of a sunny nature and a character in which strength and sweetness were combined in a most unusual degree.

Having settled upon the place they were to visit, Marian would thoroughly inform herself about it, or refresh her memory with regard to it, and then in the most clever and interesting way tell the important points for Nina's benefit, adding such spice in the way of romance, poetry, anecdotes, biography, as her wide know

ledge of English history and literature suggested. "Stories," Nina called them all. Instead of tiring her with long, dry, technical accounts and details of places, people, and past events, she managed to make them exist, breathe, live again to the eager, imaginative child. When they stood in front of the Nelson monument, for instance, Marian stirred her heart by telling her of Nelson of the Nile, "saviour of the silver-coasted isle," and his battles, victories, and death, instead of dwelling on the style of architecture or the height of the column. At Apsley House the Great Duke was her text.

The tombs of the heroes in St. Paul's interested Nina more than anything else there. These, with the stained glass, the beautiful carvings by Grinling Gibbons, the crypt supporting such an immense weight, the fact that the towers could be seen at sea and as far west as Windsor, and that Sir Christopher Wren built it in thirty-five years on the site of an ancient Gothic cathedral destroyed in the Great Fire,whereas St. Peter's at Rome, its only rival, was a hundred and fifty years in building, some stories about Howard and Heber, ever after stood for "St. Paul's" in her mind.

and

The Tower was not to be seen in one visit, or even in the three they made to it; and its great ghosts and its two little ones-those of the murdered princes were very visible to these travelers, and as real as themselves. Full of interest and enthusiasm herself, Marian easily inspired the child with both; and together they walked through the silent rooms that are yet so eloquent of the tears, sighs, prayers woes of so many souls; together walked over Tower Green, red with the blood of so many of England's noblest and bravest; together lingered in the Chapel, so full of shadows actual and historical; admired the crown jewels, and discussed in turn the long line of British monarchs and warriors in full armor, mounted on their war steeds in separate stalls of the Horse Armory; and having enjoyed fully every feature of the palace-citadel, passed through the terrible Traitors' Gate, and went home by water, "just to see what it was like in Warwick's time."

The "storied urns" and marble busts and no longer animated dust of the Abbey gave them so much to see and talk over that, alone,