y from the room.

"Well," she said as she stopped for a moment at the door, "we must hope
for the best. Perhaps Percy will overcome this aversion in time. You
might talk seriously to him to-morrow about it."

"To-morrow," said the Earl, referring once more to his diary, "Basil and
I are visiting the romantic scarps of Filey."

IV

On the day following the unfortunate accident at Filey the Earl and
Countess of Blight reclined together upon the cliffs of Bridlington.

"If we only had had Percy here!" sighed the Earl.

"It was something to have got him as far as the beach," said the Countess
hopefully. "Perhaps in time--a little higher every day--"

The Earl sighed again.

"The need for self-expression comes strongly upon the artist at a time
like this," he said. "It is not for me to say that I have genius--"

"It is for me to say it, dear," said his wife.

"Well, well, perhaps in my own line. And at the full height of one's
powers to be baulked by the morbidity, for I can call it nothing else, of
a Percy Podby! Gertie," he went on dreamily, "I wish I could make you
understand something of the fascination which an artist finds in his
medium. To be lying here, at the top of the world, with the lazy sea
crawling beneath us so many feet below--"

"Look," said the Countess suddenly. She pointed to the beach.

The Earl rose, stretched his head over the edge and gazed down.

"Percy," he said.

"Yes. Almost exactly beneath us."

"If anything fell upon him from here," said the Earl thoughtfully, "it is
quite possible that--"

Suddenly the fascination whereof he had spoken to her came irresistibly
home to the Countess.

"Yes," she said, as if in a trance, "if anything fell upon
him from here--" and she gave her husband a thoughtful
push--"it--is--quite--possible--that--"

At the word "that" the Earl reached Percy, and simultaneously the title
expired.

Poor Blight!--or perhaps, since the title was never really his, we should
say "Poor Blighter!" It is difficult to withhold our sympathy from him.

HIGH JINKS AT HAPPY-THOUGHT HALL

[_An inevitable article in any decent magazine at Christmas-time. Read it
carefully, and then have an uproarious time in your own little house_.]

It was a merry party assembled at Happy-Thought Hall for Christmas. The
Squire liked company, and the friends whom he had asked down for the
festive season had all stayed at Happy-Thought Hall before, and were
therefore we