“What a fellow-feeling that gives one!” I said.  “At school, at college, in business, in the war with Spain when I served on the Dixie, my life has been one long struggle to preserve that little f against a capital F world.  I remember saying that to a chum the day we sank Cervera, ‘If I am killed, Bill,’ I said, ’see that they don’t capital F me on the scroll of fame!’”

“A true ffrench!” exclaimed Beauty with approval.

“As true as yourself,” I said.

“Do you know that I’m the last of them?” she said.

“You!” I exclaimed.  “The last!”

“Yes,” she said, “when my father dies the estates will pass to my second cousin, Lord George Willoughby, and our branch of the family will become extinct.”

“You fill me with despair,” I said.

“My father never can forgive me for being a girl,” she said.

“I can,” I remarked, “even at the risk of appearing disloyal to the race.”

“Fyles,” she said, addressing me straight out by my first name, and with a little air that told me plainly I had made good my footing in the fold, “Fyles, what a pity you aren’t the rightful heir, come from overseas with parchments and parish registers, to make good your claim before the House of Lords.”

“Wouldn’t that be rather hard on you?” I asked.

“I’d rather give up everything than see the old place pass to strangers,” she said.

“But I’m a stranger,” I said.

“You’re Fyles ffrench,” she exclaimed, “and a man, and you’d hand the old name down and keep the estate together.”

“And guard the little f with the last drop of my blood,” I said.

“Ah, well!” she said, with a little sigh, “the world’s a disappointing place at best, and I suppose it serves us right for centuries of conceit about ourselves.”

“That at least will never die,” I observed.  “The American branch will see to that part of it.”

“It’s a pity, though, isn’t it?” she said.

“Well,” I said, “when a family has been carrying so much dog for a thousand years, I suppose in common fairness it’s time to give way for another.”

“What is carrying dog?” she said.

“It’s American,” I returned, “for thinking yourself better than anybody else!”

“Fancy!” she said, and then with a beautiful smile she took my hand and rubbed it against the hound’s muzzle.

“You mustn’t growl at him, Olaf,” she said.  “He’s a ffrench; he’s one of us; and he has come from over the sea to make friends.”

“You can’t turn me out of the park after that,” I said, in spite of a very dubious lick from the noble animal, who, possibly because he couldn’t read and hadn’t seen my card, was still a prey to suspicion.

“I am going to take you back to the castle myself,” she said, “and we’ll spend the day going all over it, and I shall introduce you to my father—­Sir Fyles—­when he returns at five from Ascot.”