The plan seemed a sound one; a difficulty in its
execution suggested itself to Jerton.

"Of course," said the lady, when he hinted at the
obstacle, "there's my fare back to town, and my bill here

and cabs and things. If you'll lend me three pounds that
ought to see me through comfortably. Thanks ever so.

Then there is the question of that luggage: I don't want
to be saddled with that for the rest of my life. I'll

have it brought down to the hall and you can pretend to
mount guard over it while I'm writing a letter. Then I

shall just slip away to the station, and you can wander
off to the smoking-room, and they can do what they like

with the things. They'll advertise them after a bit and
the owner can claim them."

Jerton acquiesced in the manoeuvre, and duly mounted
guard over the luggage while its temporary owner slipped

unobtrusively out of the hotel. Her departure was not,
however, altogether unnoticed. Two gentlemen were

strolling past Jerton, and one of them remarked to the
other:

"Did you see that tall young woman in grey who went
out just now? She is the Lady - "

His promenade carried him out of earshot at the
critical moment when he was about to disclose the elusive

identity. The Lady Who? Jerton could scarcely run after
a total stranger, break into his conversation, and ask

him for information concerning a chance passer-by.
Besides, it was desirable that he should keep up the

appearance of looking after the luggage. In a minute or
two, however, the important personage, the man who knew,

came strolling back alone. Jerton summoned up all his
courage and waylaid him.

"I think I heard you say you knew the lady who went
out of the hotel a few minutes ago, a tall lady, dressed

in grey. Excuse me for asking if you could tell me her
name; I've been talking to her for half an hour; she - er

- she knows all my people and seems to know me, so I
suppose I've met her somewhere before, but I'm blest if I

can put a name to her. Could you - ?"
"Certainly. She's a Mrs. Stroope."

"MRS.?" queried Jerton.
"Yes, she's the Lady Champion at golf in my part of

the world. An awful good sort, and goes about a good
deal in Society, but she has an awkward habit of losing

her memory every now and then, and gets into all sorts of
fixes. She's furious, too, if you make any allusion to

it afterwards. Good day, sir."
The stranger passed on his way, and before Jerton

had had time to assimilate his information he found his
whole attention centred on an angry-looking lady who was

making loud and fretful-seeming inquiries of the hotel
clerks.

"Has any luggage been brought here from the station
by mistake, a dress-basket and dressing-case, with the

name Kestrel-Smith? It can't be traced anywhere. I saw
it put in at Victoria, that I'll swear. Why - there is

my luggage! and the locks have been tampered with!"
Jerton heard no more. He fled down to the Turkish

bath, and stayed there for hours.
THE STALLED OX

THEOPHIL ESHLEY was an artist by profession, a
cattle painter by force of environment. It is not to be

supposed that he lived on a ranche or a dairy farm, in an
atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, milking-stool,

and branding-iron. His home was in a park-like, villa-
dotted district that only just escaped the reproach of

being suburban. On one side of his garden there abutted
a small, picturesquemeadow, in which an enterprising

neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the
Channel Island persuasion. At noonday in summertime the

cows stood knee-deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade
of a group of walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in

dappled patches on their mouse-sleek coats. Eshley had
conceived and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful

milch-cows in a setting of walnut tree and meadow-grass
and filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly

exposed the same on the walls of its Summer Exhibition.
The Royal Academy encourages orderly, methodical habits

in its children. Eshley had painted a successful and
acceptable picture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under

walnut trees, and as he had begun, so, of necessity, he
went on. His "Noontide Peace," a study of two dun cows

under a walnut tree, was followed by "A Mid-day
Sanctuary," a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows

under it. In due succession there came "Where the Gad-
Flies Cease from Troubling," "The Haven of the Herd," and

"A-dream in Dairyland," studies of walnut trees and dun
cows. His two attempts to break away from his own

tradition were signal failures: "Turtle Doves alarmed by
Sparrow-hawk" and "Wolves on the Roman Campagna" came

back to his studio in the guise of abominable heresies,
and Eshley climbed back into grace and the public gaze

with "A Shaded Nook where Drowsy Milkers Dream."
On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting

some finishing touches to a study of meadow weeds when
his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailed the outer door

of his studio with loud peremptory knockings.
"There is an ox in my garden," she announced, in

explanation of the tempestuous intrusion.
"An ox," said Eshley blankly, and rather fatuously;

"what kind of ox?"
"Oh, I don't know what kind," snapped the lady. "A

common or garden ox, to use the slang expression. It is
the garden part of it that I object to. My garden has

just been put straight for the winter, and an ox roaming
about in it won't improve matters. Besides, there are

the chrysanthemums just coming into flower."
"How did it get into the garden?" asked Eshley.

"I imagine it came in by the gate," said the lady
impatiently; "it couldn't have climbed the walls, and I

don't suppose anyone dropped it from an aeroplane as a
Bovril advertisement. The immediately important question

is not how it got in, but how to get it out."
"Won't it go?" said Eshley.

"If it was anxious to go," said Adela Pingsford
rather angrily, "I should not have come here to chat with

you about it. I'm practically all alone; the housemaid
is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down

with an attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have
learned at school or in after life about how to remove a

large ox from a small garden seems to have escaped from
my memory now. All I could think of was that you were a

near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or
less familiar with the subjects that you painted, and

that you might be of some slight assistance. Possibly I