ch like to
have your reasons."

Heriot smiled.

"Will you undertake to believe them?"

"I undertake to give them my closest professional consideration,
whatever they are."

"May I ask if you are a lawyer?"

Mr. Brown coughed once or twice before replying.

"He is," said Andrew decisively, and Mr. Brown seemed content to let
this reply pass as his own.

"You can talk to me with the utmost frankness," he said; "in fact, I
infinitely prefer it."

"Well," began Heriot, "the simple fact of the matter is that I am
growing rapidly younger."

"Ah?" commented Mr. Brown.

It was curious that he should exchange a quick glance, not with the lady
whose interests he was representing, but with her errant lover's
faithful son.

"Yes," said Mr. Walkingshaw, warming to his narrative, "I am literally
racing backwards. It is like a drive over a road one has passed along
before, only in the opposite direction and much faster. I simply whizz
past the old milestones. Now, a man who is behaving like that has no
business to marry an already mature lady, who is growing older at the
rate of, say one, while he is growing younger at the rate of, say ten;
has he, Mr. Brown?"

"No," replied Mr. Brown emphatically, "I honestly don't think he has."

Heriot was delighted with this confirmation of his judgment. He threw a
glance at the widow to see how she took it, but her eyes were cast down,
and she displayed no emotion whatever.

"That's the long and the short of the matter, Mr. Brown. I make the
profoundest apologies to my charming relative; but if you agree that I
acted for the best, I suppose we might as well adjourn and have a cup of
tea."

"Just one moment," said Mr. Brown gently. "I should like to have a few
more particulars regarding this very interesting phenomenon, if you
don't mind."

"Not a bit, my dear sir. It's a very natural curiosity."

"You feel, of course, a considerable exhilaration of spirits in
consequence of this change?"

"I'm simply bursting with them."

"Naturally, naturally. And you propose, no doubt, to exercise your
activities in some beneficial way?"

"In a dozen ways. I've already been the means of securing two happy
engagements for my youngest children."

"And breaking off two," said Andrew.

His father turned to him with a frown. This was hardly the support he
expected. To his great pleasure, the sympathetic Mr. Brown also
disapproved of the interruption.

"One thing at a time, please,"