ortly betook himself to the garden, where, in spite of a
decided freshness in the atmosphere, he walked for half-an-hour smoking
a pipe. When he entered the house again, he met Adela at the foot of the
stairs.

'Mrs. Mewling has just come in,' she whispered.

'All right, I'll come up with you,' was the reply. 'Heaven defend me
from her small talk!'

They ascended to a very little room, which made a kind of boudoir
for Adela. Alfred struck a match and lit a lamp, disclosing a nest of
wonderful purity and neatness. On the table a drawing-board was slanted;
it showed a text of Scripture in process of 'illumination.'

'Still at that kind of thing!' exclaimed Alfred. 'My good child, if you
want to paint, why don't you paint in earnest? Really, Adela, I must
enter a protest! Remember that you are eighteen years of age.'

'I don't forget it, Alfred.'

'At eight-and-twenty, at eight-and-thirty, you propose still to be at
the same stage of development?'

'I don't think we'll talk of it,' said the girl quietly. 'We don't
understand each other.'

'Of course not, but we might, if only you'd read sensible books that I
could give you.'

Adela shook her head. The philosophical youth sank into his favourite
attitude--legs extended, hands in pockets, nose in air.

'So, I suppose,' he said presently, 'that fellow really has been ill?'

Adela was sitting in thought; she looked up with a shadow of annoyance
on her face.

'That fellow?'

'Eldon, you know.'

'I want to ask you a question,' said his sister, interlocking her
fingers and pressing them against her throat. 'Why do you always speak
in a contemptuous way of Mr. Eldon?'

'You know I don't like the individual.'

'What cause has "the individual" given you?'

'He's a snob.'

'I'm not sure that I know what that means,' replied Adela, after
thinking for a moment with downcast eyes.

'Because you never read anything. He's a fellow who raises a great
edifice of pretence on rotten foundations.'

'What can you mean? Mr. Eldon is a gentleman. What pretence is he guilty
of?'

'Gentleman!' uttered her brother with much scorn. 'Upon my word,
that _is_ the vulgarest of denominations! Who doesn't call himself so
nowadays! A man's a man, I take it, and what need is there to lengthen
the name? Thank the powers, we don't live in feudal ages. Besides, he
doesn't seem to me to be what you imply.'

Adela had taken a book; in turning over the pages, she said--

'No doubt y