is country I stayed for a few days with Scroope, or, rather,
with his fiancee and her people, at a fine house in Essex. (I called it
Essex to avoid the place being identified, but really it was one of the
neighbouring counties.) During my visit I was taken to see a much finer
place, a splendid old castle with brick gateway towers, that had been
wonderfully well restored and turned into a most luxurious modern
dwelling. Let us call it "Ragnall," the seat of a baron of that name.

I had heard a good deal about Lord Ragnall, who, according to all
accounts, seemed a kind of Admirable Crichton. He was said to be
wonderfully handsome, a great scholar--he had taken a double first at
college; a great athlete--he had been captain of the Oxford boat at the
University race; a very promising speaker who had already made his mark
in the House of Lords; a sportsman who had shot tigers and other large
game in India; a poet who had published a successful volume of verse
under a pseudonym; a good solider until he left the Service; and lastly,
a man of enormous wealth, owning, in addition to his estates, several
coal mines and an entire town in the north of England.

"Dear me!" I said when the list was finished, "he seems to have been
born with a whole case of gold spoons in his mouth. I hope one of them
will not choke him," adding: "Perhaps he will be unlucky in love."

"That's just where he is most lucky of all," answered the young lady to
whom I was talking--it was Scroope's fiancee, Miss Manners--"for he is
engaged to a lady that, I am told, is the loveliest, sweetest, cleverest
girl in all England, and they absolutely adore each other."

"Dear me!" I repeated. "I wonder what Fate _has_ got up its sleeve for
Lord Ragnall and his perfect lady-love?"

I was doomed to find out one day.

So it came about that when, on the following morning, I was asked if
I would like to see the wonders of Ragnall Castle, I answered "Yes."
Really, however, I wanted to have a look at Lord Ragnall himself, if
possible, for the account of his many perfections had impressed the
imagination of a poor colonist like myself, who had never found an
opportunity of setting his eyes upon a kind of human angel. Human devils
I had met in plenty, but never a single angel--at least, of the male
sex. Also there was always the possibility that I might get a glimpse
of the still more angelic lady to whom he was engaged, whose name,
I understood, was the Hon. Miss Holm