ernoon. Did
you get tea, dear, at Major Littleton's?" (to her husband). "That's
right! Then sit down on this comfy chair and entertain us, please."

"Rather a big order," laughed Canon Clark, shaking hands with his young
visitors, and taking the proffered seat. "How do you want to be
entertained? No sermons to-day?" and his eyes twinkled. "Don't all speak
at once. I'm beginning to get nervous!"

"You can tell the most beautiful stories," suggested Sheila, who had
paid visits before to the Villa Bleue and knew the capabilities of her
host.

"Oh, yes, please, _do_ tell us a story!" agreed the others. "We'd like
it better than anything."

"I have one inside my desk which is just ready to send off to a
magazine. If it won't bore you to listen to it, I'll read it aloud and
let you judge whether it has any interest in it or not. An audience of
schoolgirls ought to be severe critics. As a rule they're omnivorous
readers of fiction. If you turn it down I shall tear it up."

"Oh, but we shan't!"

"_Please_ begin!"

Thus urged, Canon Clark fetched a manuscript from his study, and after
passing round the plate of taffy, to "sweeten his narrative" as he put
it, he sat down in his basket-chair on the veranda and began to read.

"THE LUCK OF DACREPOOL

"I had known Jack Musgrave out East; we had chummed
at Mandalay, messed together at Singapore, hunted
big game up in Kashmir, and shot tigers in Bengal,
and, when we said good-by, as he boarded the
homeward-bound steamer at Madras, it was with a
cordial invitation on his part that I should look
him up if ever I happened to penetrate into the
remote corner of Cumberland where his family acres
were situated.

"For a year or two my affairs kept me in India, and
nothing seemed more unlikely than that--for the
present, at any rate--Jack and I should cross paths
again, but by one of those strange chances which
sometimes occur in this world I found myself, on
the Christmas Eve of 190-, standing on the platform
of Holdergate Station, having missed the connection
for Scotland, and with the pleasing prospect before
me of spending the night, and possibly--if trains
were not available--the ensuing Christmas Day at
the one very second-rate inn in the village.

"It was then that I remembered tha