r
amount of money. His principal craze, however, as I understand it, was
to add to his knowledge on the engrossing subject of _Beetles_. He has
written some papers on them since his return, and they tell me he has
made his mark, and will soon be considered a leading authority. I must
say, however, that the whole thing seems to me of supreme unimportance.
What on earth can it matter whether there are ten varieties of beetles
or ten thousand? Rob is just the sort of hard-headed, determined fellow
who could have made himself felt in whatever _role_ he had taken up, and
it seems hard luck that he should have chosen one so extremely dull and
unremunerative." Hector leant his head against the wall with an air of
patronising disgust, for his own profession being one of avowed
readiness to kill as many as possible of his fellow-creatures, he felt a
natural impatience with a man who trifled away his time in the study of
animal nature. He sighed, and turned to his companion in an appeal for
sympathy. "Hard lines, isn't it, when a fellow has society practically
at his feet, that he should run off the lines like that?"

"De-plorable!" said Peggy firmly, and her expression matched the word.
She shook her head and gazed solemnly into space, as if overpowered by
the littleness of the reflection. "Poor Rob--he is incorrigible! I
suppose, then, he doesn't care a bit for dinners, or dances, or standing
against a wall at a reception, or riding in a string in the Park, but
prefers to pore over his microscope, and roam over the country, poking
about for specimens in the ditches and hedgerows?"

"Exactly. The mater can hardly induce him to go out, and he is never so
happy as when he can get on a flannel shirt and transform himself into a
tramp. You remember Rob's appearance in his school-days? He is almost
as disreputable to-day, with his hair hanging in that straight heavy
lock over his forehead, and his shoulders bowed by poring over that
everlasting microscope."

A light passed swiftly across Peggy's face, and her eyes sparkled. One
of the most trying features of a long absence from home is that the face
which one most longs to remember has a way of growing dim, and elusively
refusing to be recalled. In those hot Indian days, Peggy had often
seated herself in her mental picture gallery, and summoned one friend
after another before her: the vicar, with his kindly smiles; Mrs
Asplin, with the loving eyes, and the tired flush