rable investments in northern industrials. It was an odd
collusion of mortality; we had had only the coldest relations with our
cousins, and now abruptly through their commercial and speculative
activities, which we had always affected to despise and ignore, I was in
a position to attempt the realization of my old political ambitions.

My cousins' house had not been to my father's taste. He had let it, and
I came to a new home in a pleasant, plain red-brick house, a hundred and
fifty years old perhaps, on an open and sunny hillside, sheltered by
trees eastward and northward, a few miles to the south-west of
Guildford. It had all the gracious proportions, the dignified
simplicity, the roomy comfort of the good building of that time. It
looked sunward; we breakfasted in sunshine in the library, and outside
was an old wall with peach trees and a row of pillar roses heavily in
flower. I had a little feared this place; Burnmore Rectory had been so
absolutely home to me with its quiet serenities, its ample familiar
garden, its greenhouses and intimately known corners, but I perceived I
might have trusted my father's character to preserve his essential
atmosphere. He was so much himself as I remembered him that I did not
even observe for a day or so that he had not only aged considerably but
discarded the last vestiges of clerical costume in his attire. He met me
in front of the house and led me into a wide panelled hall and wrung my
hand again and again, deeply moved and very inexpressive. "Did you have
a good journey?" he asked again and again, with tears in his eyes. "Did
you have a comfortable journey?"

"I've not seen the house," said I. "It looks fine."

"_You're_ a man," he said, and patted my shoulder. "Of course! It was at
Burnmore."

"You're not changed," I said. "You're not an atom changed."

"How could I?" he replied. "Come--come and have something to eat. You
ought to have something to eat."

We talked of the house and what a good house it was, and he took me out
into the garden to see the peaches and grape vine and then brought me
back without showing them to me in order to greet my cousin. "It's very
like Burnmore," he said with his eyes devouring me, "very like. A
little more space and--no services. No services at all. That makes a gap
of course. There's a little chap about here, you'll find--his name is
Wednesday--who sorts my papers and calls himself my secretary.... Not
necessary perhaps but--_I missed