t liberty to dispose of it elsewhere, _unless_ you require it for the
use of the young lady who is, I hear, to go up with you."

V.

"I will be a poor man among poor men," said John Storm to himself as he
drove to his vicar's house in Eaton Place, but he awoke next morning in a
bedroom that did not answer to his ideas of a life of poverty. A footman
came with hot water and tea, and also a message from the canon overnight
saying he would be pleased to see Mr. Storm in the study after breakfast.

The study was a sumptuous apartment immediately beneath, with soft
carpets on which his feet made no noise, and tiger-skins over the backs
of chairs. As he entered it a bright-faced man in middle life,
clean-shaven, wearing a gold-mounted _pince-nez_, and bubbling over with
politeness, stepped forward to receive him.

"Welcome to London, my dear Mr. Storm. When the letter came from the
Prime Minister I said to my daughter Felicity--you will see her
presently--I trust you will be good friends--I said, 'It is a privilege,
my child, to meet any wish of the dear Earl of Erin, and I am proud to be
in at the beginning of a career that is sure to be brilliant and
distinguished.'"

John Storm made some murmur of dissent.

"I trust you found your rooms to your taste, Mr. Storm?"

John Storm had found them more than he expected or desired.

"Ah, well, humble but comfortable, and in any case please regard them as
your own, to receive whom you please therein, and to dispense your own
hospitalities. This house is large enough. We shall not meet oftener than
we wish, so we can not quarrel. The only meal we need take together is
dinner. Don't expect too much. Simple but wholesome--that's all we can
promise you in a clergyman's family."

John Storm answered that food was an indifferent matter to him, and that
half an hour after dinner he never knew what he had eaten. The canon
laughed and began again.

"I thought it best you should come to us, being a stranger in London,
though I confess I have never had but one of my clergy residing with me
before. He is here now. You'll see him by-and-bye. His name is Golightly,
a simple, worthy young man, from one of the smaller colleges, I believe.
Useful, you know, devoted to me and to my daughter, but of course a
different sort of person altogether, and--er----"

It was a peculiarity of the canon that whatever he began to talk about,
he always ended by talking of himself.

"I sent for y