ed by his children in a case of uncertainty. A
proper map could be drawn up only when the country had been travelled.
He gave Lyon his mornings, till luncheon, and they talked of many
things, not neglecting, as a stimulus to gossip, the people in the
house. Now that he did not 'go out,' as he said, he saw much less of the
visitors at Stayes: people came and went whom he knew nothing about, and
he liked to hear Lyon describe them. The artist sketched with a fine
point and did not caricature, and it usually befell that when Sir David
did not know the sons and daughters he had known the fathers and
mothers. He was one of those terrible old gentlemen who are a repository
of antecedents. But in the case of the Capadose family, at whom they
arrived by an easy stage, his knowledge embraced two, or even three,
generations. General Capadose was an old crony, and he remembered his
father before him. The general was rather a smart soldier, but in
private life of too speculative a turn--always sneaking into the City to
put his money into some rotten thing. He married a girl who brought him
something and they had half a dozen children. He scarcely knew what had
become of the rest of them, except that one was in the Church and had
found preferment--wasn't he Dean of Rockingham? Clement, the fellow who
was at Stayes, had some military talent; he had served in the East, he
had married a pretty girl. He had been at Eton with his son, and he used
to come to Stayes in his holidays. Lately, coming back to England, he
had turned up with his wife again; that was before he--the old man--had
been put to grass. He was a taking dog, but he had a monstrous foible.

'A monstrous foible?' said Lyon.

'He's a thumping liar.'

Lyon's brush stopped short, while he repeated, for somehow the formula
startled him, 'A thumping liar?'

'You are very lucky not to have found it out.'

'Well, I confess I have noticed a romantic tinge----'

'Oh, it isn't always romantic. He'll lie about the time of day, about
the name of his hatter. It appears there are people like that.'

'Well, they are precious scoundrels,' Lyon declared, his voice trembling
a little with the thought of what Everina Brant had done with herself.

'Oh, not always,' said the old man. 'This fellow isn't in the least a
scoundrel. There is no harm in him and no bad intention; he doesn't
steal nor cheat nor gamble nor drink; he's very kind--he sticks to his
wife, is fond of his children. H