He passed a tramp family still sleeping, huddled all together. Even the
homeless lay in each other's arms!

From the Common he emerged on the road near the gates of Ravensham;
turning in there, he found his way to the kitchen garden, and sat down on
a bench close to the raspberry bushes. They were protected from thieves,
but at Miltoun's approach two blackbirds flustered out through the
netting and flew away.

His long figure resting so motionless impressed itself on the eyes of a
gardener, who caused a report to be circulated that his young lordship
was in the fruit garden. It reached the ears of Clifton, who himself
came out to see what this might mean. The old man took his stand in
front of Miltoun very quietly.

"You have come to breakfast, my lord?"

"If my grandmother will have me, Clifton."

"I understood your lordship was speaking last night."

"I was."

"You find the House of Commons satisfactory, I hope."

"Fairly, thank you, Clifton."

"They are not what they were in the great days of your grandfather, I
believe. He had a very good opinion of them. They vary, no doubt."

"Tempora mutantur."

"That is so. I find quite anew spirit towards public affairs. The
ha'penny Press; one takes it in, but one hardly approves. I shall be
anxious to read your speech. They say a first speech is a great strain."

"It is rather."

"But you had no reason to be anxious. I'm sure it was beautiful."

Miltoun saw that the old man's thin sallow cheeks had flushed to a deep
orange between his snow-white whiskers.

"I have looked forward to this day," he stammered, "ever since I knew
your lordship--twenty-eight years. It is the beginning."

"Or the end, Clifton."

The old man's face fell in a look of deep and concerned astonishment.

"No, no," he said; "with your antecedents, never."

Miltoun took his hand.

"Sorry, Clifton--didn't mean to shock you."

And for a minute neither spoke, looking at their clasped hands as if
surprised.

"Would your lordship like a bath--breakfast is still at eight. I can
procure you a razor."

When Miltoun entered the breakfast room, his grandmother, with a copy of
the Times in her hands, was seated before a grape fruit, which, with a
shredded wheat biscuit, constituted her first meal. Her appearance
hardly warranted Barbara's description of 'terribly well'; in truth she
looked a little white, as if she had been feeling the heat. But there
was no lack of anima