y well," he said tolerantly, "but what is there for me
to do?"

"If you took more interest in country pursuits it might be different.
But you don't hunt, you shoot very seldom----"

"And very badly."

"And not at all well, as you admit. You say you won't become a
magistrate, you show no interest in politics or--or--social questions.
You simply moon about."

Charlie was vividly reminded of a learned judge whom he had once heard
pronouncing sentence of death. His uncle's denunciation seemed to lack
its appropriate conclusion--that he should be hanged by the neck till
he was dead. He was roused to defend himself.

"You're quite wrong, uncle," he said. "I'm working hard. I'm writing a
history of the family."

"A history of the family!" groaned Mr. Vansittart. "Who wants one?
Who'll read one?"

"From an antiquarian point of view--" began Charlie stoutly.

"Of all ways of wasting time, antiquarianism is perhaps the most
futile;" and Mr. Vansittart wiped his mouth with an air of finality.

"Now the Agatha Merceron story," continued Charlie, "is in itself---"

"Perhaps we'd better finish our talk tomorrow. The ladies will, expect
us in the garden."

"All right," said Charlie, with much content. He enjoyed himself more
in the garden, for, while Lady Merceron and her brother in law took
counsel, he strolled through the moonlit shrubberies with Mrs. Marland,
and Mrs. Marland was very sympathetically interested in him and his
pursuits. She was a little eager woman, the very antithesis in body and
mind to Millie Bushell; she had plenty of brains but very little sense,
a good deal of charm but no beauty, and, without any counterbalancing
defect at all, a hearty liking for handsome young men. She had also a
husband in the City.

"Ghost-hunting again to-night, Mr. Merceron?" she asked, glancing up at
Charlie, who was puffing happily at a cigar.

"Yes," he answered, "I'm very regular."

"And did you see anyone?

"I saw Millie Bushell."

"Miss Bushell's hardly ghost-like, is she?"

"We'll," said Charlie meditatively, "I suppose if one was fat oneself
one's ghost would be fat, wouldn't it?"

Mrs. Marland, letting the problem alone, laughed softly.

"Poor Miss Bushell! If she heard you say that! Or if Lady Merceron
heard you!"

"It would hardly surprise my mother to hear that I thought Millie
Bushell plump. She is plump, you know;" and Charlie's eyes expressed a
candid homage to truth.

"Oh, I know what's being