excuse me--but you really do talk like a snob. Before I cry
over people who have lost their property, I ask myself how they have
lost it, and also how they have used it." The little lady drew herself
up fiercely.

"We have all got beams in our own eyes," cried Aunt Marcia. "And of
course we all know, Winifred, that Sir Arthur never would give you
anything for your curates."

"That has nothing to do with it," said Lady Winifred angrily. "I gave
Sir Arthur a sacred opportunity--which he refused. That's his affair.
But when a man gambles away his estates, neglects his duties and his
poor people, wastes his money in riotous living, and teaches his
children to think themselves too good for this common world, and then
comes to grief--I am not going to whine and whimper about it. Let him
take it like a man!"

"So he does," said her sister warmly. "You know Mr. Latimer said so, and
also that Douglas was behaving very well."

"What else can he do? I never said he wasn't fond of his father. Well,
now let him look after his father."

The two maiden ladies, rather flushed and agitated, faced each other
nervously. They had forgotten the presence of their niece. Constance sat
in the shade, her beautiful eyes passing intently from one sister to the
other, her lips parted. Aunt Marcia, by way of proving to her sister
Winifred that she was a callous and unkind creature, began to rake up
inconsequently a number of incidents throwing light on the relations of
father and son; which Lady Winifred scornfully capped by another series
of recollections intended to illustrate the family arrogance, and
Douglas Falloden's full share in it. For instance:

_Marcia_--"I shall never forget that charming scene when Douglas made a
hundred, not out, the first day of the Flood cricket week, when he was
sixteen. Sir Arthur's face! And don't you remember how he went about
half the evening with his arm round the boy's shoulders?"

_Winifred_--"Yes, and how Douglas hated it! I can see him wriggling now.
Do you remember that just a week after that, Douglas broke his
hunting-whip beating a labourer's boy, whom he found trespassing in one
of the coverts, and how Sir Arthur paid fifty pounds to get him out of
the scrape?"

_Marcia_, indignantly--"Of course that was just a lad's high spirits! I
have no doubt the labourer's boy richly deserved it."

_Winifred_--"Really, Marcia, your tone towards the lower orders! You
don't allow a labourer's boy any high