re for it," he observed.

"They must have been very stupid, then!"

"Old buffers generally are," he replied. "Some of the young chaps
thought it first-rate, even though they were a little startled for the
moment. Though why people should feel startled by anything so
self-evident as my remarks beats me. Be hanged to them for silly idiots!
Eh, Jean?"

His momentary expression of chagrin made way for a merry smile, which
set his daughter smiling gaily back.

"If they disagree with you, father, they must be!" she laughed.

They sat silent for a few minutes, Jean watching the green fields and
trees and gates and walls rush past to join the jagged fells behind
them, her father watching her.

"It's awfully good of you taking me back with you," she said presently.

"If it's a treat for you, you deserve it," he answered affectionately;
"and if it's not--well, anyhow, it's pleasant for me having your
company."

"It is a treat for me, though I don't quite see what I've done to
deserve it."

"You have stood by your father, my dear; and one good turn deserves
another. I'd have been most infernally sick if I'd forgotten that
dinner. It gave me the very chance of saying a word or two in season
I'd been longing for. I only hope it will do the old fogies good."

He took up the paper and glanced again at the report.

"'Remarkable speech,' they call it," he continued complacently. "Well,
they are not very far wrong. It _was_ a remarkable speech. Eh, Jean?"

The good gentleman seemed unable to obtain his daughter's approval often
enough. The fact was he had been a trifle disappointed with the attitude
of some of his old friends last night. There was no doubt about it, he
must go to the young folks for the meed of sympathy he deserved.

Jean again looked out of the window, but she ceased to pay much
attention to the backward-drifting landscape. Her heart was too full of
hopes and questionings and restless wonder. In a little she turned to
her father again and said, with an eye so candid and a smile so kind
that many members even of her own sex would never have suspected a hint
of ulterior design--

"Do you know, you are the very best of fathers!"

He replied in the same spirit of affection, and she continued--

"I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to being in London
again! You couldn't have done anything I'd have liked better."

"Yes," he confessed, "London is an amusing place."

"And one always meets so man