d sold out Bank Stock and
Consols,--which gave very poor interest, I remarked cursorily-and had
kept the money at my bankers', to draw upon according to our necessities.
I pitied the old man while speaking. His face was livid; language died
from his lips. He asked to have little things explained to him--the two
cheque-books, for instance,--and what I thought of doing when this money
was all gone: for he supposed I did not expect the same amount to hand
every two years; unless, he added, I had given him no more than a couple
of years' lease of life when I started for my tour. 'Then the money's
gone!' he summed up; and this was the signal for redemanding
explanations. Had he not treated me fairly and frankly in handing over my
own to me on the day of my majority? Yes.

'And like a fool, you think--eh?'

'I have no such thought in my head, sir.'

'You have been keeping that fellow in his profligacy, and you 're keeping
him now. Why, you 're all but a beggar! . . . Comes to my house, talks of
his birth, carries off my daughter, makes her mad, lets her child grow up
to lay hold of her money, and then grips him fast and pecks him, fleeces
him! . . . You 're beggared--d 'ye know that? He's had the two years of
you, and sucked you dry. What were you about? What were you doing? Did
you have your head on? You shared cheque-books? good! . . . The devil in
hell never found such a fool as you! You had your house full of your
foreign bonyrobers--eh? Out with it! How did you pass your time? Drunk
and dancing?'

By such degrees my grandfather worked himself up to the pitch for his
style of eloquence. I have given a faint specimen of it. When I took the
liberty to consider that I had heard enough, he followed me out of the
library into the hall, where Janet stood. In her presence, he charged the
princess and her family with being a pack of greedy adventurers,
conspirators with 'that fellow' to plunder me; and for a proof of it, he
quoted my words, that my father's time had been spent in superintending
the opening of a coal-mine on Prince Ernest's estate. 'That fellow
pretending to manage a coal-mine!' Could not a girl see it was a shuffle
to hoodwink a greenhorn? And now he remembered it was Colonel Goodwin and
his daughter who had told him of having seen 'the fellow' engaged in
playing Court-buffoon to a petty German prince, and performing his
antics, cutting capers like a clown at a fair.

'Shame!' said Janet.

'Hear her!' The