y--where, as you know, my father established a beacon
and installed a keeper to warn boats off our shoals--and, finding the
place to his liking, had remained there, regardless of our feelings."

"Tut, tut!" said Tanty; but whether in reproof of Rupert's flippant
language or of her elder nephew's erratic behaviour, it would have
been difficult to determine.

"Of course," went on Rupert, smoothly, "I had resolved, after a decent
period, to remove my lares and penates from a house where I was no
longer master and to establish myself, with my small patrimony (I
believe I ought to call it _matrimony_, as we younger children benefit
by our O'Donoghue mother) in an independent establishment. But when I
first broached the subject, Adrian was so vastly distressed, expressed
himself so well satisfied with my management of the estate and begged
me so earnestly to consider Pulwick as my home, vowing that he himself
would never marry, and that all he looked forward to in life was to
see me wedded and with future heirs to the name springing around me,
that it would have been actual unkindness to resist. Moreover, as you
can imagine, Adrian is not exactly a man of business, and his
spasmodic interferences in the control of the property being already
then of a very injudicious nature, I confess that, having nursed it
myself for eleven years with some success, I dreaded to think what it
would become under his auspices. And so I agreed to remain. But the
position increased in difficulty. Adrian's moroseness seemed to grow
upon him; he showed an exaggerated horror of company; either flying
from visitors as from the pest, and shutting himself up in his own
apartments, or (on the few disastrous occasions when my persuasions
induced him to show himself to some old family friends) entertaining
them with such unusual sentiments concerning social laws, the
magistracy, the government, his Majesty the King himself, that the
most extraordinary reports about him soon spread over the whole
county. This was about the time--as you may remember--of my own
marriage."

Here an alteration crept into Mr. Landale's voice, and Molly looked
at him curiously, while Miss Sophia gave vent to an audible sniff.

"To be sure," said Tanty, hastily. Comfortably egotistic old ladies
have an instinctive dislike to painful topics. And that Rupert's
sorrow for his young wife had been, if self-centred and reserved, of
an intense and prolonged nature was known to all t