, to whom their grandfather--so far as they regarded him at
all--had mainly presented himself as a benevolent old proser, were
surprised to find that they sincerely regretted him; and the events of
the next few weeks threw up his merits (now that the time was past for
rewarding them) into a sharp light which memory overarched with a halo.
Tenderly into that halo dissolved his trivial faults--his trick, for
example, of snoring between the courses at dinner, or of awaking and
pulling his fingers till they cracked with a distressing sound.
These and other small frailties were forgotten as the new Sir Thomas and
his spouse took possession and proceeded in a few weeks to turn the
place inside out, dismissing five of the stable-boys, cutting down the
garden staff by one-third, and carrying havoc into the housekeeper's
apartments, the dairy, the still-room.

In these dismissals I have no doubt that Sir Thomas and Lady Caroline
hit (as justice is done in this world) upon the chief blackguards.
But the two boys, asking one another why So-and-so had been marked down
while This-other had been spared, and observing that the So-and-so's
included an overbalancing number of their own cronies, found malice in
the discrimination, and a malice directed with intent upon themselves.

Young Oliver, as soon as Harry was convalescent, discussed this
vehemently with him. Harry, weak with illness, took it passively.
He was destined for the Navy. To him already the sea meant everything:
as a child of three, on his voyage home in the _Mogul_ East Indiaman, he
had caught the infection of it; on it, as offering the only career fit
for a grown man, his young thoughts brooded, and these annoyances were
to him but as chimney-pots and pantiles falling about the heads of folks
ashore. But he agreed that Di's conduct needed explaining. She had
taken a demure turn, and was not remonstrating with her parents as she
ought--not playing fair, in short. "It must be pretty difficult for
her," said Harry. "I don't see," said Oliver.

The two boys went back to Westminster together. They spent the
Christmas holidays with their Uncle Frederick, the barrister, who
practised very little at the law either in court or in chambers, hut
dwelt somewhat luxuriously in the Inner Temple and lived the life of a
man-about-town. Their summer vacation was to be spent at Carwithiel;
but, as it happened, they were not to see Carwithiel again, for before
summer came new