ention. The art was learned, but
the man was always apart from it; using it as a toy, yet not despising
it; for, as he said, it had its points, it was necessary. There was
yachting in the summer; but he was keener to know the life of England
and his heritage than to roam afar, and most of the year was spent on
the estate and thereabouts: with the steward, with the justices of the
peace, in the fields, in the kennels, among the accounts.

To-day he was in London, haunting Tattersall's, the East End, the
docks, his club, the London Library--he had a taste for English history,
especially for that of the seventeenth century; he saturated himself
with it: to-morrow he would present to his grandfather a scheme for
improving the estate and benefiting the cottagers. Or he would suddenly
enter the village school, and daze and charm the children by asking them
strange yet simple questions, which sent a shiver of interest to their
faces.

One day at the close of his second hunting-season there was to be a ball
at the Court, the first public declaration of acceptance by his people;
for, at his wish, they did not entertain for him in town the previous
season--Lady Belward had not lived in town for years. But all had
gone so well, if not with absolute smoothness, and with some
strangeness,--that Gaston had become an integral part of their life, and
they had ceased to look for anything sensational.

This ball was to be the seal of their approval. It had been mentioned in
'Truth' with that freshness and point all its own. What character
than Gaston's could more appeal to his naive imagination? It said in a
piquant note that he did not wear a dagger and sombrero.

Everything was ready. Decorations were up, the cook and the butler had
done their parts. At eleven in the morning Gaston had time on his hands.
Walking out, he saw two or three children peeping in at the gateway.

He would visit the village school. He found the junior curate troubling
the youthful mind with what their godfathers and godmothers did for
them, and begging them to do their duty "in that state of life," etc.
He listened, wondering at the pious opacity, and presently asked the
children to sing. With inimitable melancholy they sang: "Oh, the Roast
Beef of Old England!"

Gaston sat back and laughed softly till the curate felt uneasy, till the
children, waking to his humour, gurgled a little in the song. With his
thumbs caught lightly in his waistcoat pockets, he