bosoms of the dilettanti.

Strange to say, although courted and run after by nearly all the
eligible young ladies, the Count became so fond of Mrs. Clarkson's
society that scarcely a day passed but he was found at her house. At
the fair lady's "Thursday Evenings," of course, he was one of the
principal attractions, added to which he dined and lunched
frequently at her house, and escorted her to balls and parties: her
husband not caring for the everlasting round of excitement, and, far
from feeling jealous of the Count, he was proud to think that his
choice of a companion should be endorsed by one who presumably was a
competent judge.

It was not long till the lady was at her old tricks again, and what
Randolph Thompson had been to her before, Von Alba soon became, the
simple husband encouraging these visits, and allowing his wife to
squander his money lavishly on her paramour. Mrs. Grundy in the
meanwhile began to be suspicious, and rumors, at first vague and
indefinite, became almost pointed accusations against Mrs. Clarkson.
The poor husband, although not altogether crediting the fact that
there was a foundation for these reports, saw the necessity, in the
equivocal position in which both he and his wife stood, of putting a
stop to all suspicious intercourse with the Count; and, being
resolute enough when so disposed, he forbade his wife to meet Von
Alba any more in private, or to invite him to her house.

This, as may be supposed, brought matters to a crisis and brought on
a terrible quarrel between the abandoned woman and her husband. She
saw that the game was up as far as Detroit was concerned, and so,
managing to forge her husband's name to a cheque for several