nd had nicer friends!" The small black eyes under
the white hair flamed.

Constance started. Miss Wenlock put up a soothing hand--

"Dear Sarah, are you thinking of any one?"

"Of course I am!" said Mrs. Mulholland firmly. "There is a young
gentleman at Marmion who thinks the world belongs to him. Oh, you know
Mr. Falloden, Grace! He got the Newdigate last year, and the Greek Verse
the other day. He got the Ireland, and he's going to get a First. He
might have been in the Eleven, if he'd kept his temper, and they say
he's going to be a magnificent tennis player. And a lot of other
tiresome distinctions. I believe he speaks at the Union, and speaks
well--bad luck to him!"

Constance laughed, fidgeted, and at last said, rather defiantly--

"It's sometimes a merit to be disliked, isn't it? It means that you're
not exactly like other people. Aren't we all turned out by the gross!"

Mrs. Mulholland looked amused.

"Ah, but you see I know something about this young man at home. His
mother doesn't count. She has her younger children, and they make her
happy. And of course she is absurdly proud of Douglas. But the father
and this son Douglas are of the same stuff. They have a deal more brains
and education than their forbears ever wanted; but still, in soul, they
remain our feudal lords and superiors, who have a right to the services
of those beneath them. And everybody is beneath them--especially women;
and foreigners--and artists--and people who don't shoot or hunt. Ask
their neighbours--ask their cottagers. Whenever the revolution comes,
their heads will be the first to go! At the same time they know--the
clever ones--that they can't keep their place except by borrowing the
weapons of the class they really fear--the professional class--the
writers and thinkers--the lawyers and journalists. And so they take some
trouble to sharpen their own brains. And the cleverer they are, the more
tyrannous they are. And that, if you please, is Mr. Douglas Falloden!"

"I wonder why you are so angry with him, my dear Sarah," said Miss
Wenlock mildly.

"Because he has been bullying my nice boy, Radowitz!" said Mrs.
Mulholland vehemently. "I hear there has been a disgraceful amount of
ragging in Marmion lately, and that Douglas Falloden--can you conceive
it?--a man in his last term, whom the University imagines itself to be
turning out as an educated specimen!--is one of the ring-leaders--the
ring-leader. It appears that Otto wears