he
new-comer with the absent stateliness he generally put on when his mind
was in a state of confusion as to a person's identity.

"Well, so they're sending you to D----? There'll be a row there before
long. Wish you joy of the missionaries!"

"No, not D----," said Warkworth, smiling. "Nothing so amusing. Mokembe's
my destination."

"Oh, Mokembe!" said Lord Lackington, a little abashed. "That's where
Cecil Ray, Lord R's second son, was killed last year--lion-hunting? No,
it was of fever that he died. By-the-way, a vile climate!"

"In the plains, yes," said Warkworth, seating himself. "As to the
uplands, I understand they are to be the Switzerland of Africa."

Lord Lackington did not appear to listen.

"Are you a homoeopath?" he said, suddenly, rising to his full and
immense stature and looking down with eagerness on Warkworth.

"No. Why?"

"Because it's your only chance, for those parts. If Cecil Ray had had
their medicines with him he'd be alive now. Look here; when do you
start?" The speaker took out his note-book.

"In rather less than a month I start for Denga."

"All right. I'll send you a medicine-case--from Epps. If you're ill,
take 'em."

"You're very good."

"Not at all. It's my hobby--one of the last." A broad, boyish smile
flashed over the handsome old face. "Look at me; I'm seventy-five, and I
can tire out my own grandsons at riding and shooting. That comes of
avoiding all allopathic messes like the devil. But the allopaths are
such mean fellows they filch all our ideas."

The old man was off. Warkworth submitted to five minutes' tirade,
stealing a glance sometimes at the group of Julie, Meredith, and
Delafield in the farther window--at the happy ease and fun that seemed
to prevail in it. He fiercely felt himself shut out and trampled on.

Suddenly, Lord Lackington pulled up, his instinct for declamation
qualified by an equally instinctive dread of boring or being bored.
"What did you think of Montresor's statement?" he said, abruptly,
referring to a batch of army reforms that Montresor the week before had
endeavored to recommend to a sceptical House of Commons.

"All very well, as far as it goes," said Warkworth, with a shrug.

"Precisely! We English want an army and a navy; we don't like it when
those fellows on the Continent swagger in our faces, and yet we won't
pay either for the ships or the men. However, now that they've done away
with purchase--Gad! I could fight them in the stree