say, Willets, I'm sure. Is it any particular young lady
you're worried about?"

Willets sat down on the wall. "In my time,"
he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me
to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own
class. But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."

For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you
think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"

"I think so. I shall try anyway."

"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd
better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."

"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets. I suppose we must go to bed.
Many thanks for the splendid sport. I have to get back to Chatham
to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a
time."

"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for
but one night."

Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.

He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.

The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket
and read it easily:

"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter. I'm glad you
rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or
carrying sandwich boards. I'm much too busy having a lovely time. Oh
_never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both
Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie. She is
having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member. It's
all very well for her to say she is forming him. She is undermining
all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist
constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have
him again.

"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon
because it was too wet to be out in the garden. She has sent him to
lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she
talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories. She
tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he
can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate
what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful
and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young
man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply
follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads. He ga