on at the close of the
last winter but one; an appointment having been obtained for him as an
_attache_ to the Paris embassy. Ten months of service, and some scrape he
fell into caused him (a good deal of private interest was brought to bear
in the matter) to be removed to Vienna; but he had not remained there
very long. He seemed to have a propensity for getting into trouble, or
rather an inability to keep out of it. Latterly he had been staying in
London with his brother.

His thoughts wandered to the past as he looked at the chimneys of
Hartledon--all he could see of it--from the low-lying ground. He
remembered the happy time when they had been children in it; five of
them--the three boys and the two girls--he himself the youngest and the
pet. His eldest sister, Margaret, had been the first to leave it. She
married Sir James Cooper, and went with him to his remote home in
Scotland, where she was still. The second to go was Laura, who married
Captain Level, and accompanied him to India. Then he, Val, a young man in
his teens, went out into the world, and did all sorts of harm in it in an
unintentional sort of way; for Percival Elster never did wrong by
premeditation. Next came the death of his mother. He was called home from
a sojourn in Scotland--where his stay had been prolonged from the result
of an accident--to bid her farewell. Then he was at home for a year or
more, making love to charming Anne Ashton. The next move was his
departure for Paris; close upon which, within a fortnight, occurred the
calamity to his brother George. He came back from Paris to see him in
London, whither George had been conveyed for medical advice, and there
then seemed a chance of his recovery; but it was not borne out, and the
ill-fated young man died. Lord Hartledon's death was the next. He had an
incurable complaint, and his death followed close upon his son's. Lord
Elster became Earl of Hartledon; and he, Val, heir-presumptive.
Heir-presumptive! Val Elster was heir to all sorts of follies, but--

"Good morning to your lordship!"

The speaker was a man in a smock-frock, passing with a reaping-hook on
his shoulder. Mr. Elster's sunny face and cheery voice gave back the
salutation with tenfold heartiness, smiling at the title. Half the
peasantry had been used to addressing the brothers so, indiscriminately;
they were all lords to them.

The interruption awoke Mr. Elster from his thoughts, and he marched gaily
on down the middle of