ut at this point Rachel plunged
into the conversation with the sister, Vera, which required an effort,
since the elder Miss Venables was a young lady who had cultivated
languor as a sign of breeding and sophistication. Rachel, however, made
the effort with such a will that the talk became general in a moment.

"I don't know how anybody writes books," was the elder young lady's
solitary contribution; her tone added that she did not want to know.

"Nor I," echoed Sybil, "especially in a place like this, where nothing
ever happens. If I wanted to write a novel, I should go to Spain--or
Siberia--or the Rocky Mountains--where things do happen, according to
all accounts."

"Young lady," returned the novelist, a twinkle in his eye, "I had
exactly the same notion when I first began, and I remember what a much
older hand said to me when I told him I was going down to Cornwall for
romantic background. 'Young man,' said he, 'have you placed a romance in
your mother's backyard yet?' I had not, but I did so at once instead of
going to Cornwall, and sounder advice I never had in my life. Material,
like charity, begins at home; nor need you suppose that nothing ever
happens down here. That is the universal idea of the native about his or
her own heath, but I can assure you it isn't the case at all. Only just
now, on my way here, I saw a scene and a character that might have been
lifted bodily out of Bret Harte."

Sybil Venables clamored for particulars, while her sister resigned
herself to further weariness of the flesh. Rachel put down her cup and
leant forward with curiously expectant eyes. They were sitting in the
cool, square hall, with doors shut or open upon every hand, and the
gilded gallery overhead. Statuettes and ferns, all reflected in the
highly polished marble floor, added a theatrical touch which was not out
of keeping with a somewhat ornate interior.

"It was the character," continued Langholm, "who was making the scene;
and a stranger creature I have never seen on English earth. He wore what
I believe they call a Crimean shirt, and a hat like a stage cowboy; and
he informed all passers that he was knocking down his check!"

"What?" cried Rachel and Sybil in one breath, but in curiously different
tones.

"Knocking down his check," repeated Langholm. "It's what they do in the
far west or the bush or somewhere--but I rather fancy it's the
bush--when they get arrears of wages in a lump in one check."

"And where d