Austin returned in plenty of time to spend a few minutes loitering in the garden after he had dressed for dinner. It was a favourite habit of his, and he said it gave him an appetite; but the truth was that he always loved to be in the open air to the very last moment of the day, watching the colours of the sky as they changed and melted into twilight. On this particular evening the heavens were streaked with primrose, and pale iris, and delicate limpid green; and so absorbed was he in gazing at this splendour of dissolving beauty that he forgot all about his appetite, and had to be called twice over before he could drag himself away.

"Well, and did you have an interesting visit?" asked Aunt Charlotte, when dinner was halfway through. "You found Mr St Aubyn at home?"

Austin had been unusually silent up till then, being somewhat preoccupied with the experiences of the afternoon. He wanted to ask his aunt all manner of questions, but scarcely liked to do so as long as the servant was waiting. But now he could hold out no longer.

"Yes—even more interesting than I hoped," he answered. "I had plenty of delightful chat with St Aubyn, and then a visitor came in. It's that that I want to talk about."

"A visitor, eh?" said Aunt Charlotte, her attention quickening. "What sort of a visitor? A lady?"

"Yes, an old lady," replied Austin, "who——"

"Did she come in an open fly?" pursued Aunt Charlotte, helping herself to sauce.

"Why, how did you know? I believe she did," said Austin. "She had driven over from Cleeve."

"Well, then, I must have seen her," said Aunt Charlotte. "A queer-looking old person in a great bonnet. I happened to be walking through the village, and she stopped the fly to ask me the way to the Court, and I remember wondering who she could possibly be. I suppose it was she whom you met there."

"What, was it you she asked?" exclaimed Austin, opening his eyes. "She told us the driver didn't know the way, and that she'd enquired—oh dear, oh dear, how funny!"

"What's funny?" demanded Aunt Charlotte, abruptly.

"Oh, never mind, I can't tell you, and it doesn't matter in the least," said Austin, beginning to giggle. "Only I shouldn't have known it was you from her description."

"Why, what did she say?" Aunt Charlotte was getting suspicious.

"My dear auntie, she didn't know who you were, of course," replied Austin, "and she bore high testimony to the respectability of your appearance, that's all. Only it's so funny to think it was you. It never occurred to me for a moment."

"What did she say , Austin?" repeated Aunt Charlotte, sternly. "I insist upon knowing her exact words. Of course it doesn't really matter what a poor old thing like that may have said, but I always like to be precise, and it's just as well to know how one strikes a stranger. It wasn't anything rude, I hope, for I'm sure I answered her quite kindly."

The servant was out of the room. "No, auntie, I don't think it was rude, but it was so comic——"

" Do stop giggling, and tell me what it was," interrupted Aunt Charlotte, impatiently.

"Well, she only said you were a respectable-looking body," replied Austin, as gravely as he could. "And so you are, you know, auntie, though, perhaps, if I had to describe you I should put it in rather different words. I'm sure she meant it as a compliment."

"Upon my word, I feel extremely flattered!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, reddening. "A respectable-looking body, indeed! Well, it's something to know I look respectable. And who was this very patronising old person, pray? Some old nurse or other, I should say, to judge by her appearance."

"She was the Countess of Merthyr Tydvil, St Aubyn's aunt," said Austin, enjoying the joke.

"The Countess of Merthyr Tydvil!" echoed Aunt Charlotte, amazed.

"And she's staying with the Duke at Cleeve Castle," added Austin. "But that's not the point. Just fancy, auntie, she actually knew my father! She knew him before he was married, and they were tremendous friends. It all came out because she said I was so like somebody, and she couldn't think who it could be, and then she asked what my surname was, and so on, till we found out all about it. Wasn't it curious? Did you ever hear of her before?"

"Indeed I never knew of her existence till this moment," answered Aunt Charlotte, beginning to get interested. "Your father had any number of friends, and of course we didn't know them all. Well, it is curious, I must say. But she didn't say you were like your father, did she?"

"No—my mother," replied Austin. "She didn't know her much, but she remembers her very well. She said she was a very lovely person, too."

"Your father was good-looking in a way," said Aunt Charlotte, falling into a reminiscent mood, "but not in the least like you. He used to go a great deal into society, and no doubt it was there he met this Lady Merthyr Tydvil, and any number of others. Did she tell you anything about him—anything, I mean, that you didn't know before?"

"No, I don't think she did, except that she was very fond of him and would like to have married him herself. But as she was married already, and he was engaged to somebody else, of course it was too late."

" What! She told you that?" cried Aunt Charlotte, scandalized. "What a shameless old hussy she must be!"

"Not a bit of it," retorted Austin. "She's a sweet old woman, and I love her very much. Besides, she only meant it in fun."

"Fun, indeed!" sniffed Aunt Charlotte, primly. "She may call me a respectable-looking body as much as she likes now. It's more than I can say for her."

"Auntie, you are an old goose!" exclaimed Austin, with a burst of laughter. "You never could see a joke. She called you a respectable-looking body, and you called her a queer old woman like a nurse. Now you say she's a shameless old hussy, and so, on the whole, I think you've won the match."

Aunt Charlotte relapsed into silence, and did not speak again until the dessert had been brought in. Austin helped himself to a plateful of black cherries, while his aunt toyed with a peach. At last she said, in rather a hesitating tone:

"Well, you've told me your adventures, so there's an end of that. But I've had a little adventure of my own this afternoon; though whether it would interest you to hear it——"

" Oh, do tell me!" said Austin, eagerly. "An adventure—you?"

"I'm not sure whether adventure is quite the correct expression," replied Aunt Charlotte, "and I don't quite know how to begin. You see, my dear Austin, that you are very young."

"It isn't anything improper, is it?" asked Austin, innocently.

"If you say such things as that I won't utter another word," rejoined his aunt. "I simply state the fact—that you are very young."

"And I hope I shall always remain so," Austin said.

"That being the case," resumed his aunt, impressively, "a great many things happened long before you were born."

"I've never doubted that for a moment, even in my most sceptical moods," Austin assured her seriously.

"Well, I once knew a gentleman," continued Aunt Charlotte, "of whom I used to see a great deal. Indeed I had reasons for believing that—the gentleman—rather appreciated my—conversation. Perhaps I was a little more sprightly in those days than I am now. Anyhow, he paid me considerable attention——"

" Oh!" cried Austin, opening his eyes as wide as they would go. "Oh, auntie!"

"Of course things never went any further," said Aunt Charlotte, "though I don't know what might have happened had it not been that I gave him no encouragement whatever."

"But why didn't you? What was he like? Tell me all about him!" interrupted Austin, excitedly. "Was he a soldier, like father? I'm sure he was—a beautiful soldier in the Blues, whatever the Blues may be, with a grand uniform and clanking spurs. That's the sort of man that would have captivated you, auntie. Was he wounded? Had he a wooden leg? Oh, go on, go on! I'm dying to hear all about it."

"That he had a uniform is possible, though I never saw him wear one, and it may have been blue for anything I know; but that wouldn't imply that he was in the Blues," replied his aunt, sedately. "No; the strange thing was that he suddenly went abroad, and for five-and-twenty years I never heard of him. And now he has written me a letter."

"A letter!" cried Austin. "This is an adventure, and no mistake. But go on, go on."

"I never was more astounded in my life," resumed his aunt. "A letter came from him this afternoon. He recalls himself to my remembrance, and says—this is the most singular part—that he was actually staying quite close to here only a short time ago, but had no idea that I was living here. Had he known it he would most certainly have called, but as he has only just discovered it, quite accidentally, he says he shall make a point of coming down again, when he hopes he may be permitted to renew our old acquaintance."

"Now look here, auntie," said Austin, sitting bolt upright. "Let him call, by all means, and see how well you look after being deserted for five-and-twenty years; but I don't want a step-uncle, and you are not to give me one. Fancy me with an Uncle Charlotte! That wouldn't do, you know. You won't give me a step-uncle, will you? Please!"

"Don't be absurd, my dear; and do, for goodness' sake, keep that dreadful leg of yours quiet if you can. It always gives me the jumps when you go on jerking it about like that. Of course I should never dream of marrying now; but I confess I do feel a little curious to see what my old friend looks like after all these years——"

" Your old admirer, you mean," interpolated Austin. "To think of your having had a romance! You can't throw stones at Lady Merthyr Tydvil now, you know. I believe you're a regular flirt, auntie, I do indeed. This poor young man now; you say he disappeared, but I believe you simply drove him away in despair by your cruelty. Were you a 'cruel maid' like the young women one reads about in poetry-books? Oh, auntie, auntie, I shall never have faith in you again."

"You're a very disrespectful boy, that's what you are," retorted Aunt Charlotte, turning as pink as her ribbons. "The gentleman we're speaking of must be quite elderly, several years older than I am, and, for all I know, he may have a wife and half-a-dozen grown-up children by this time. You let your tongue wag a very great deal too fast, I can tell you, Austin."

"But what's his name?" asked Austin, not in the least abashed. "We can't go on for ever referring to him as 'the gentleman,' as though there were no other gentlemen in the world, can we now?"

"His name is Ogilvie—Mr Granville Ogilvie," replied his aunt. "He belongs to a very fine old family in the north. There have been Ogilvies distinguished in many ways—in literature, in the services, and in politics. But there was always a mystery about Granville, somehow. However, I expect he'll be calling here in a few days, and then, no doubt, your curiosity will be gratified."

"Oh, I know what he'll be like," said Austin. "A lean, brown traveller, with his face tanned by tropic suns and Arctic snows to the colour of an old saddle-bag. His hair, of course, prematurely grey. On his right cheek there'll be a lovely bright-blue scar, where a charming tiger scratched him just before he killed it with unerring aim. I know the sort of person exactly. And now he comes to say that he lays his battered, weather-worn old carcase at the feet of the cruel maid who spurned it when it was young and strong and beautiful. And the cruel maid, now in the full bloom of placid maternity—I mean maturity——"

"Hold your tongue or I'll pull your ears!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, scarlet with confusion. "You'll make me sorry I ever said anything to you on the subject. Mr Ogilvie, as far as I can judge from his letter, is a most polished gentleman. There's a quaint, old-world courtesy about him which one scarcely ever meets with at the present day. Just remember, if you please, that we're simply two old friends, who are going to meet again after having lost sight of each other for five-and-twenty years; and what there is to laugh about in that I entirely fail to see."

"Dear auntie, I won't laugh any more, I promise you," said Austin. "I'm sure he'll turn out a most courtly old personage, and perhaps he'll have an enormous fortune that he made by shaking pagoda-trees in India. How do pagodas grow on trees, I wonder? I always thought a pagoda was a sort of odalisque—isn't that right? Oh, I mean obelisk—with beautiful flounces all the way up to the top. It seems a funny way of making money, doesn't it. Where is India, by the bye? Anywhere near Peru?"

"Your ignorance is positively disgraceful, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, with great severity. "I only hope you won't talk like that in the presence of Mr Ogilvie. I expect you're right in surmising that he's been a great traveller, for he says himself that he has led a very wandering, restless life, and he would be shocked to think I had a nephew who didn't know how to find India upon the map. There, you've had quite as many cherries as are good for you, I'm sure. Let us go and see if it's dry enough to have our coffee on the lawn, while Martha clears away."

Now although Austin was intensely tickled at the idea of Aunt Charlotte having had a love-affair, and a love-affair that appeared to threaten renewal, the fact was that he really felt just a little anxious. Not that he believed for a moment that she would be such a goose as to marry, at her age; that, he assured himself, was impossible. But it is often the very things we tell ourselves are impossible that we fear the most, and Austin, in spite of his curiosity to see his aunt's old flame, looked forward to his arrival with just a little apprehension. For some reason or other, he considered himself partly responsible for Aunt Charlotte. The poor lady had so many limitations, she was so hopelessly impervious to a joke, her views were so stereotyped and conventional—in a word, she was so terribly Early Victorian, that there was no knowing how she might be taken in and done for if he did not look after her a bit. But how to do it was the difficulty. Certainly he could not prevent the elderly swain from calling, and, of course, it would be only proper that he himself should be absent when the two first came together. A tête-à-tête between them was inevitable, and was not likely to be decisive. But, this once over, he would appear upon the scene, take stock of the aspirant, and shape his policy accordingly. What sort of a man, he wondered, could Mr Ogilvie be? He had actually passed through the town not so very long ago; but then so had hundreds of strangers, and Austin had never noticed anyone in particular—certainly no one who was in the least likely to be the gentleman in question. There was nothing to be done, meanwhile, then, but to wait and watch. Perhaps the gentleman would not want to marry Aunt Charlotte after all. Perhaps, as she herself had suggested, he had a wife and family already. Neither of them knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined—Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit to be saddled with a step-uncle.

As for Aunt Charlotte, she, too, deemed it beyond the dreams of possibility that she would ever marry. In fact, it was only Austin's nonsense that had put so ridiculous a notion into her head. It was true that, in the years gone by, the attentions of young Granville Ogilvie had occasioned her heart a flutter. Perhaps some faint, far-off reverberation of that flutter was making itself felt in her heart now. It is so, no doubt, with many maiden ladies when they look back upon the past. But if she had ever felt a little sore at her sudden abandonment by the mercurial young man who had once touched her fancy, the tiny scratch had healed and been forgotten long ago. At the same time, although the idea of marriage after five-and-twenty years was too absurd to be dwelt on for a moment, the worthy lady could not help feeling how delightful it would be to be asked . Of course, that would involve the extremely painful process of refusing; and Aunt Charlotte, in spite of her rough tongue, was a merciful woman, and never willingly inflicted suffering upon anybody. Even blackbeetles, as she often told herself, were God's creatures, and Mr Ogilvie, although he had deserted her, no doubt had finer sensibilities than a blackbeetle. So she did not wish to hurt him if she could avoid it; still, a proposal of marriage at the age of forty-seven would be rather a feather in her cap, and she was too true a woman to be indifferent to that coveted decoration. But then, once more, it was quite possible that he would not propose at all.

The next morning Austin put on his straw hat, and went and sat down by the old stone fountain in the full blaze of the sun, as was his custom. Lubin was somewhere in the shrubbery, and, unaware that anyone was within hearing, was warbling lustily to himself. Austin immediately pricked up his ears, for he had had no idea that Lubin was a vocalist. Away he carolled blithely enough, in a rough but not unmusical voice, and Austin was just able to catch some of the words of the quaint old west-country ballad that he was singing.

"Bravo, Lubin!" cried Austin, clapping his hands. "You do sing beautifully. And what a delightful old song! Where did you pick it up?"

"Eh, Master Austin," said Lubin, emerging from among the rhododendrons, "if I'd known you was a-listening I'd 'a faked up something from a French opera for you. Why, that's an old song as I've known ever since I was that high—'Tom of Exeter' they calls it. It's a rare favourite wi' the maids down in the parts I come from."

"Shows their good taste," said Austin. "It's awfully pretty. Who was Tom Dove, and why did he come to town?"

"Nay, I can't tell," replied Lubin. "Tis some made-up tale, I doubt. They do say as how he was a tailor. But there is folks as'll say anything, you know."

"A tailor!" exclaimed Austin, scornfully, "That I'm sure he wasn't. But oh, Lubin, there is somebody coming to town in a day or two—somebody I want to find out about. Do you often go into the town?"

"Eh, well, just o' times; when there's anything to take me there," answered Lubin, vaguely. "On market-days, every now and again."

"Oh yes, I know, when you go and sell ducks," put in Austin. "Now what I want to know is this. Have you, within the last three or four weeks, seen a stranger anywhere about?"

"A stranger?" repeated Lubin. "Ay, that I certainly have. Any amount o' strangers."

"Oh well, yes, of course, how stupid of me!" exclaimed Austin, impatiently. "There must have been scores and scores. But I mean a particular stranger—a certain person in particular, if you understand me. Anybody whose appearance struck you in any way."

"Well, but what sort of a stranger?" asked Lubin. "Can't you tell me anything about him? What'd he look like, now?"

"That's just what I want to find out," replied Austin. "If I could describe him I shouldn't want you to. All I know is that he's a sort of elderly gentleman, rather more than fifty. He may be fifty-five, or getting on for sixty. Now, isn't that near enough? Oh—and I'm almost sure that he's a traveller."

"H'm," pondered Lubin, leaning on his broom reflectively. "Well, yes, I did see a sort of elderly gentleman some three or four weeks ago, standing at the bar o' the 'Coach-and-Horses.' What his age might be I couldn't exactly say, 'cause he was having a drink with his back turned to the door. But he was a traveller, that I know."

"A traveller? I wonder whether that was the one!" exclaimed Austin. "Had he a dark-brown face? Or a wooden leg? Or a scar down one of his cheeks?"

"Not as I see," answered Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "But a traveller he was, because the barmaid told me so. Travelled all over the country in bonnets."

"Travelled in bonnets?" cried Austin. "What do you mean, Lubin? How can a man go travelling about the country in a bonnet? Had he a bonnet on when you saw him drinking in the bar?"

"Lor', Master Austin, wherever was you brought up?" exclaimed Lubin, in grave amazement at the youth's ignorance. "When a gentleman 'travels' in anything, it means he goes about getting orders for it. Now this here gentleman was agent, I take it, for some big millinery shop in London, and come down here wi' boxes an' boxes o' bonnets, an' tokes, and all sorts o' female headgear as women goes about in——"

"In short, he was a commercial traveller," said Austin, very mildly. "You see, my dear Lubin, we have been talking of different things. I wasn't thinking of a gentleman who hawks haberdashery. When I said traveller, I meant a man who goes tramping across Africa, and shoots elephants, and gets snowed up at the North Pole, and has all sorts of uncomfortable and quite incredible adventures. They always have faces as brown as an old trunk, and generally limp when they walk. That's the sort of person I'm looking out for. You haven't seen anyone like that, have you?"

"Nay—nary a one," said Lubin, shaking his head. "Would he have been putting up at one o' the inns, now, or staying long wi' some o' the gentry?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," acknowledged Austin.

"Might as well go about looking for a ram wi' five feet," remarked Lubin. "Some things you can't find 'cause they don't exist, and other things you can't find 'cause there's too many of 'em. And as you don't know nothing about this gentleman, and wouldn't know him if you met him in the street permiscuous, I take it you'll have to wait to see what he looks like till he turns up again of his own accord. 'Tain't in reason as you can go up to every old gentleman with a brown face as you never see before an' ask him if he's ever been snowed up at the North Pole and why he hasn't got a wooden leg. He'd think, as likely as not, as you was trying to get a rise out of him. Don't you know what the name may be, neither?"

"Oh yes, I do, of course," responded Austin. "He's a Mr Ogilvie."

"Never heard of 'im," said Lubin. "Might find out at one o' the inns if any party o' that name's been staying there, but I doubt they wouldn't remember. Folks don't generally stay more'n one night, you see, just to have a look at the old market-place and the church, and then off they go next morning and don't leave no addresses. Th' only sort as stays a day or two are the artists, and they'll stay painting here for more'n a week at a time. It may 'a been one o' them."

"I wonder!" exclaimed Austin, struck by the idea. "Perhaps he's an artist, after all; artists do travel, I know. I never thought of that. However, it doesn't matter. It's only some old friend of Aunt Charlotte's, and he's coming to call on her soon, so it isn't worth bothering about meanwhile."

He therefore dismissed the matter from his mind, and set about the far more profitable employment of fortifying himself by a morning's devotion to garden-craft, both manual and mental, against the martyrdom (as he called it) that he was to undergo that afternoon. For Aunt Charlotte had insisted on his accompanying her to tea at the vicarage, and this was a function he detested with all his heart. He never knew whom he might meet there, and always went in fear of Cobbledicks, MacTavishes, and others of the same sort. The vicar himself he did not mind so much—the vicar was not a bad little thing in his way; but Mrs Sheepshanks, with her patronising disapproval and affected airs of smartness, he couldn't endure, while the Socialistic curate was his aversion. The reason he hated the curate was partly because he always wore black knickerbockers, and partly because he was such chums with the MacTavish boys. How any self-respecting individual could put up with such savages as Jock and Sandy was a problem that Austin was wholly unable to solve, until it was suggested to him by somebody that the real attraction was neither Jock nor Sandy, but one of their screaming sisters—a Florrie, or a Lottie, or an Aggie—it really did not matter which, since they were all alike. When this once dawned upon him, Austin despised the knickerbockered curate more than ever.

On the present occasion, however, the MacTavishes were happily not there; the only other guest (for of course the curate didn't count) being a friend of the curate's, who had come to spend a few days with him in the country. The friend was a harsh-featured, swarthy young man, belonging to what may be called the muscular variety of high Ritualism; much given to a sort of aggressive slang—he had been known to refer to the bishop of his diocese as "the sporting old jester that bosses our show"—and representing militant sacerdotalism in its most blusterous and rampant form. He was also in the habit of informing people that he was "nuts" on the Athanasian Creed, and expressing the somewhat arbitrary opinion that if the Rev. John Wesley had had his deserts he would have been exhibited in a pillory and used as a target for stale eggs. There are a few such interesting youths in Holy Orders, and the curate's friend was one of them.

The party were assembled in the garden, where Mrs Sheepshanks's best tea-service was laid out. To say that the conversation was brilliant would be an exaggeration; but it was pleasant and decorous, as conversations at a vicarage ought to be. The two ladies compared notes about the weather and the parish; the curate asked Austin what he had been doing with himself lately; the friend kept silence, even from good words, while the vicar, one of the mildest of his cloth, sat blinking in furtive contemplation of the friend. Certainly it was not a very exhilarating entertainment, and Austin felt that if it went on much longer he should scream. What possible pleasure, he marvelled, could Aunt Charlotte find in such a vapid form of dissipation? Even the garden irritated him, for it was laid out in the silly Early Victorian style, with wriggling paths, and ribbon borders, and shrubs planted meaninglessly here and there about the lawn, and a dreadful piece of sham rockwork in one corner. Of course the vicar's wife thought it quite perfect, and always snubbed Austin in a very lofty way if he ever ventured to express his own views as to how a garden should be fitly ordered. Then his eye happened to fall upon the curate's friend; and he caught the curate's friend in the act of staring at him with a most offensive expression of undisguised contempt.

Now, Austin was courteous to everyone; but to anybody he disliked his politeness was simply deadly. Of course he took no notice of the young parson's tacit insolence; he only longed, as fervently as he knew how to long, for an opportunity of being polite to him. And the occasion was soon forthcoming. The conversation growing more general by degrees, a reference was made by the vicar, in passing, to a certain clergyman of profound scholarship and enlightened views, whose recently published book upon the prophet Daniel had been painfully exercising the minds of the editor and readers of the Church Times ; and it was then that the curate's friend, without moving a muscle of his face, suddenly leaned forward and said, in a rasping voice:

"The man's an impostor and a heretic. He ought to be burned. I would gladly walk in the procession, singing the 'Te Deum,' and set fire to the faggots myself." ^[A]

And there was no doubt he meant it. A dead silence fell upon the party. The curate looked horribly annoyed. The ladies exclaimed "Oh!" with a little shudder of dismay. The vicar started, fidgeted, and blinked more nervously than ever. Then Austin, with the most charming manner in the world, broke the spell.

"Really!" he exclaimed, turning towards the speaker, a bright smile of interest upon his face. "That's a most delightfully original suggestion. May I ask what religion you belong to?"

"What religion!" scowled the curate's friend, astounded at the enquiry.

"Yes—it must be one I never heard of," replied Austin, sweetly. "I am so awfully ignorant, you know; I know nothing of geography, and scarcely anything about the religions of savage countries. Are you a Thug?"

"Oh, Austin!" breathed Aunt Charlotte, faintly.

"I always do make such mistakes," continued Austin, with his most engaging air; "I'm so sorry, please forgive me if I'm stupid. I forgot, of course Thugs don't burn people alive, they only strangle them. Perhaps I'm thinking of the Bosjesmans, or the Andaman Islanders, or the aborigines of New Guinea. I do get so mixed up! But I've often thought how lovely it would be to meet a cannibal. You aren't a cannibal, are you?" he added wistfully.

"I'm a priest of the Church of England," replied the curate's friend, with crushing scorn, though his face was livid. "When you're a little older you'll probably understand all that that implies."

"Fancy!" exclaimed Austin, with an air of innocent amazement. "I've heard of the Church of England, but I quite thought you must belong to one of those curious persuasions in Africa, isn't it—or is it Borneo?—where the services consist in skinning people alive and then roasting them for dinner. It occurred to me that you might have gone there as a missionary, and that the savages had converted you instead of you converting the savages. I'm sure I beg your pardon. And have you ever set fire to a bishop?"

"Austin! Austin!" came still more faintly from Aunt Charlotte.

The vicar, scandalised at first, was now in convulsions of silent laughter. Mrs Sheepshanks's parasol was lowered in a most suspicious manner, so as completely to hide her face; while the unfortunate curate, with his head almost between his knees, was working havoc in the vicarage lawn with the point of a heavy walking-stick. The only person who seemed perfectly at his ease was Austin, and he was enjoying himself hugely. Then the vicar, feeling it incumbent upon him, as host, to say something to relieve the strain, attempted to pull himself together.

"My dear boy," he said, in rather a quavering voice, "you may be perfectly sure that our valued guest has no sympathy with any of the barbarous religions you allude to, but is a most loyal member of the Church of England; and that when he said he would like to 'burn' a brother clergyman—one of the greatest Talmudists and Hebrew scholars now alive—it was only his humorous way of intimating that he was inclined to differ from him on one or two obscure points of historical or verbal criticism which——"

"It was not," said the curate's friend.

Mrs Sheepshanks immediately turned to Aunt Charlotte, and remarked that feather boas were likely to be more than ever in fashion when the weather changed; and Aunt Charlotte said she had heard from a most authoritative source that pleated corselets were to be the rage that autumn. Both ladies then agreed that the days were certainly beginning to draw in, and asked the curate if he didn't think so too. The curate fumbled in his pocket, and offered Austin a cigarette, and Austin, noticing the unconcealed annoyance of the unfortunate young man, who was really not a bad fellow in the main, felt kindly towards him, and accepted the cigarette with effusion. The vicar relapsed into silence, making no attempt to complete his unfinished sentence; then he stole a glance at the saturnine face of the stranger, and from that moment became an almost liberal-minded theologian; He had had an object-lesson that was to last him all his life, and he never forgot it.

"Well, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, when they were walking home, a few minutes later, "of course you ought to have a severe scolding for your behaviour this afternoon; but the fact is, my dear, that on this occasion I do not feel inclined to give you one. That man was perfectly horrible, and deserved everything he got. I only hope it may have done him good. I couldn't have believed such people existed at the present day. The most charitable view to take of him is that he can scarcely be in his right mind."

"What, because he wanted to burn somebody alive?" said Austin. "Oh, that was natural enough. I thought it rather an amusing idea, to tell the truth. The reason I went for him was that I caught him making faces at me when he thought I wasn't looking. I saw at once that he was a beast, so the instant he gave me an opportunity of settling accounts with him I took it. Oh, what a blessing it is to be at home again! Dear auntie, let's make a virtuous resolution. We'll neither of us go to the vicarage again as long as we both shall live."

He strolled into the garden—the good garden, with straight walks, and clipped hedges, and fair formal shape—and threw himself down upon a long chair. He had already begun to forget the incidents of the afternoon. Here was rest, and peace, and beauty. How tired he was! Why did he feel so tired? He could not tell. A deep sense of satisfaction and repose stole over him. Lubin was there, tidying up, but he did not feel any inclination to talk to Lubin or anybody else. He liked watching Lubin, however, for Lubin was part of the garden, and all his associations with him were pleasant. The scent of the flowers and the grass possessed him. The sun was far from setting, and a young crescent moon was hovering high in the heavens, looking like a silver sickle against the blue. From the distant church came the sound of bells ringing for even-song, faint as horns of elf-land, through the still air. He felt that he would like to lie there always—just resting, and drinking in the beauty of the world.

Suddenly he half-rose. "Lubin!" he called out quickly, in an undertone.

"Sir," responded Lubin, turning round.

"Who was that lady looking over the garden-gate just now?"

"Lady?" repeated Lubin. "I never saw no lady. Whereabouts was she?"

"On the path of course, outside. A second ago. She stood looking at me over the gate, and then went on. Run to the gate and see how far she's got—quick!"

Lubin did as he was bidden without delay, looking up and down the road. Then he returned, and soberly picked up his broom.

"There ain't no lady there," he said. "No one in sight either way. Must 'a been your fancy, Master Austin, I expect."

"Fancy, indeed!" retorted Austin, excitedly. "You'll tell me next it's my fancy that I'm looking at you now. A lady in a large hat and a sort of light-coloured dress. She must be there. There's nowhere else for her to be, unless the earth has swallowed her up. I'll go and look myself."

He struggled up and staggered as fast as he could go to the gate. Then he pushed it open and went out as far as the middle of the road from which he could see at least a hundred yards each way. But not a living creature was in sight.

"It's enough to make one's hair stand on end!" he exclaimed, as he came slowly back. "Where can she have got to? She was here—here, by the gate—not twenty seconds ago, only a few yards from where I was sitting. Don't talk to me about fancy; that's sheer nonsense. I saw her as distinctly as I see you now, and I should know her again directly if I saw her a year hence. Of all inexplicable things!"

There was no more lying down. He was too much puzzled and excited to keep still. Up and down he paced, cudgelling his brains in search of an explanation, wondering what it could all mean, and longing for another glimpse of the mysterious visitor. For one brief moment he had had a full, clear view of her face, and in that moment he had been struck by her unmistakable resemblance to himself.

[A]

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