So this quaint and shockingly heterodox millionaire would rave on, for he was a most peppery old person.  One dark and terrible legend is current concerning him, but I hardly dare repeat it.  An affable gentleman from a foreign mission called on him one day, and obtained admission (I am bound to add without any subterfuge).  Bob heard the visitor’s story, and knitted his beetling bushy brows.  He said:  “Well, sir, you’ve spoken very fairly.  Now just answer me one or two questions.  How much money have you per year?”

“Half a million.”

“Good.  Does any one supervise your missionaries?”

“We have faith in their integrity, and we credit them with industry.”

“You trust them five hundred miles up country?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“How many missionaries’ wives died in the last ten years?”

“I think probably about eighty.”

“Eighty sweet English girls condemned to death.  Good.”  The grizzled old fellow rose in dignified fashion, and said: 

“You will perhaps lunch alone, and I shall be pleased if you will be good enough to make this your final visit.”

Then the story goes on to say that Mr. Cassall placed a kennel on the lawn with a very large and truculent brindled bulldog as tenant; over the kennel he coiled a garden hose, and above the bulldog’s portal appeared the words, “For Foreign Missions.”

This seems too shocking to be true, and I fancy the whole tale was hatched in the City.  Certainly Mr. Cassall was scandalously unjust to the missionaries—­an injustice which would have vanished had he personally known the glorious results for God and humanity achieved by self-denying missionaries and their devoted wives who carry the gospel of Christ to far-off heathen lands—­but then where is the man who has not his whims and oddities?

This man, according to his lights, spread his benefactions lavishly and wisely on public charities and private cases of need.  He liked above all things to pick out clever young men and set them up in retail businesses with money lent at four per cent.  Not once did he make a blunder, and so very lucky was he that he used to tell his niece that with all his enormous expenditure he had not touched the fringe of his colossal capital.  If he assisted any advertised charity he did so in the most princely way, but only after he had personally held an audit of the books.  If the committee wanted to have the chance of drawing ten thousand pounds, let them satisfy him with their books; if they did not want ten thousand pounds, or thought they did not deserve it, let them leave it alone.

This was Robert Cassall, who was Marion Dearsley’s uncle.  His grim, grizzled head was stooping a little as he bent towards his niece on this soft winter day, and he himself looked almost like the human type of a hard, wholesome, not unkindly Winter.  His high Roman nose, penthouse brows, quick jetty eye, square well-hung chin, and above all his sturdy, decided gait—­all marked him for a Man every inch, and he did not belie his appearance, for no manlier being walks broad England than Robert Cassall.