HOME AGAIN

TWO days before Henry had planned to leave London for his holiday at
home, Adrian Grant looked in upon him hurriedly at the _Watchman_ office
to ask if it were possible for him to secure accommodation at Hampton.

"You!" exclaimed Henry, in surprise, and something akin to a feeling of
shame for the meagre possibilities of entertainment at his home flushed
his face.

"Why not?" said his friend, with a smile. "I know less than nothing of
English rural life, and it came to me as an inspiration this morning
that here was a chance to try the effect of country quiet at home. I
have a bit of work to finish, and most of my writing has been done
abroad in drowsy places. Strange I have never tried our own rural
shades, though I produce but little either in London or at Laysford."

"It's an idea, certainly," Henry observed, in a very uncertain tone.
"I'm sorry my people--"

"Of course, I would not dream of troubling your folk, but I suppose
there's such a thing as a village inn even in your secluded corner of
earth."

"There's the 'Wings and Spur,' to be sure, but I am doubtful of its
comfort."

"It's an inn, and that's enough for one who has wandered strange roads,"
and the bright earnestness of the novelist proved to Henry that he
really meant to carry out this whim of his.

Nor did he fail to notice a strange elation of manner in Mr. P. for
which he could not satisfactorily account.

The incident, however, was the matter of a moment, and the novelist went
away as hurriedly as he entered after ascertaining the train by which
Henry purposed travelling from St. Pancras, leaving the journalist with
the uncomfortable sense of being party to some absurd freak.

His wits were not nimble enough, thus suddenly taxed, to see all sides
of the project, and he swayed between the pleasant thought of visiting
his old home in the company of one so distinguished as Adrian Grant, and
the dubious fear of the impression which his humble relatives might make
upon this polished man of the world. His father's doubtful h's sounded
uncomfortably on the ear of his memory; the prospect of his toil-worn
mother entertaining such a guest, if only for an occasional meal, seemed
too unlikely a thing to contemplate. He turned again to his work with
the wish that Adrian Grant might stay in London, or find some other
rural retreat to suit his capricious taste.

But it was necessary to warn the folks at home, a