ased.  I am sure it did not enter his head that his two companions were not sincere, or that they did not wish him well.  He was thinking to himself how simple and kindly the Muddleton people were, and how great a contrast this life was to his life in London; and he was saying to himself that he had been a fool to live a lonely bachelor life till he was nearly thirty, and yet congratulating himself that he had done so since Gertrude was but nineteen.  Undoubtedly, he was seeing blissful visions of the future all the time that he replied to the pretty speeches, and shook hands with Lena Houghton, and opened the drawing-room door for her, and took out his watch to assure her that she had plenty of time and need not hurry to church.

Poor Zaluski!  He looked so kindly and pleasant.  Though I was only a slander, and might have been supposed to have no heart at all, I did feel sorry for him when I thought of the future and of the grief and pain which would persistently dog his steps.

MY SECOND STAGE

Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;
Truth is the speech of inward purity.

The Light of Asia.

In my first stage the reader will perceive that I was a comparatively weak and harmless little slander, with merely that taint of original sin which was to be expected in one of such parentage.  But I developed with great rapidity; and I believe men of science will tell you that this is always the case with low organisms.  That, for instance, while it takes years to develop the man from the baby, and months to develop the dog from the puppy, the baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour.

Personally I should have preferred to linger in Mrs. O’Reilly’s pleasant drawing-room, for, as I said before, my victim interested me, and I wanted to observe him more closely and hear what he talked about.  But I received orders to