The Black Moth Part 46

"As you sayin my own arrogant fas.h.i.+on, Frank. If I could go back a yearbut where's the use? I am not whining. Presently I shall return to England and make my bow tothe Countess of Wyncham. Possibly, I shall not feel one jealous qualm. One never knows.

At all eventsI'll make that bow."

"You will?" Frank looked sharply down at him. "Nothing more, Tracy! You do not purpose-"

"Nothing more. You see, FrankI love her."

"I crave your pardon. Yesshe would not take you, but she has, I think, made you. As I once told you, when love came you would count yourself as nought, and her happiness as everything."

For a moment his Grace was silent, and then back came the old smile, still cynical, yet with less of the sneer in it.

"How very pleasant it must be, Frank, to have one's prophecies so happily verified!" he purred. "Allow me to felicitate you!"

THE END.

Printed by the "Hamps.h.i.+re Advertiser" Co., Ltd.

Southampton, England.

Jack Carstares says, "I was born in King George the First's reign," i.e. between 1714 and 1727. Partway through the novel, he tells Miss Betty that he is thirty. His younger brother d.i.c.k is apparently twenty-nine, very close in age. We also learn that Jack went on the Grand Tour about seven years before, after finis.h.i.+ng at Oxford, and that the scandal that dishonoured him occurred six years before. The story, then, occurs somewhere between 1744 and 1757.

Lady Lavinia, in a letter at the end of the book, allows us to place it more precisely. She writes "Twill interest you to hear that Miss Gunning is to marry Coventry. 'Tis all over Town this last Week." The young Irish sisters Maria and Elizabeth Gunning arrived in London in 1751 and captivated the town for the next six months. Maria Gunning was engaged and married to the Earl of Coventry in 1752. So the book is set during the period 1751-1752.

For the amus.e.m.e.nt of the reader, this online edition of The Black Moth has been enhanced by the addition of ill.u.s.trations of 18th Century costumes suited to the characters. The black and white photographs are from the Victoria and Albert Museum, as published in Old English Costumes: Selected from the Collection formed by Mr.

Talbot Hughes, c. 1908. The color plate is taken from English Costume Painted and Described by Dion Clayton Calthrop, London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1907.

One or two spelling errors have been corrected; otherwise the text is taken from the 1921 American edition, which is in the public domain in the United States of America.

end.