“Most politely he informed me that this place does not agree with his health; and there did not seem sufficient scope for his services since the Reverend Underwood had become so much more independent.  So we were thankful to dispose of him to Lord de Vigny.”

“He was a great plague,” interpolated Adrian, “always jawing about the hall-door.”

“Are you really without a man-servant?” demanded Gerald.

“In the house.  Lomax comes up from the stables to take some of the work.  Some lemonade, Gerald?”

Gerald gazed round in search of unutterable requirements; but only met imploring eyes from aunt and sister, and restraining ones from his uncle.  He subsided and submitted to the lemonade, while Anna diverted attention by recurring rather nervously to the former subject.

“And I have got rid of Porter, she kept me in far too good order.”

“As if Sibby did not,” said Clement.

“Aye, and you too!  But that comes naturally, and began in babyhood!”

“What have you done with the house at Brompton?”

“Martha is taking care of it-—Mrs. Lightfoot, don’t you know?  One of our old interminable little Lightfoots, who went to be a printer in London, married, and lost his wife; then in our break-up actually married Martha to take care of his children!  Now he is dead, and I am thankful to have her in the house.”

“To frighten loafers with her awful squint.”

“You forgive the rejection of ‘The Inspector’s Tour’?  Indeed I think you expected it.”

“I wanted to see whether the young ladies would find it out.”

“No compliment to our genius,” said his aunt.

“I assure you, like Mrs. Bennet, ’there is plenty of that sort of thing,’” said Anna.  “Some of them were mystified, but Gillian and Dolores Mohun were in ecstasies.”

“Ecstasies from that cheerful name?”

“She is the New Zealand niece-—Mr. Maurice Mohun’s daughter.  They carried it home to their seniors, and of course the verdict was ’too strong for Rockquay atmosphere,’” said his aunt.

“So it did not even go to Uncle Lance,” said Anna.  “Shall you try the ’Pursuivant’?”

“On the contrary, I shall put in the pepper and salt I regretted, and try the ’Censor’.”

“Indeed?” observed his uncle, in a tone of surprise.

“Oh,” said Gerald coolly, “I have sent little things to the ‘Censor’ before, which they seem to regard in the light of pickles and laver.”

The ‘Censor’ was an able paper on the side of philosophical politics, and success in that quarter was a feather in the young man’s cap, though not quite the kind of feather his elders might have desired.

“Journalism is a kind of native air to us,” said Mrs. Grinstead, “but from ‘Pur.’”

“‘Pur’ is the element of your dear old world, Cherie,” said Gerald, “and here am I come to do your bidding in its precincts, for a whole long vacation.”