d
herself of clothes for years and collected nothing more agreeable than
snails, now wears silks and satins, and gossips and goes out to tea, and
collects blue china like anybody else. I connect it with the advent of a
certain General who after all went off solitary to Malta, and died
there. Poor Marcia! But you will certainly have to go and stay there."

"I don't know!" said Constance, her delicate mouth setting rather
stiffly.

"Ah, well--they are getting old!"

Mrs. Mulholland's tone had softened again, and when it softened there
was a wonderful kindness in it.

A door opened suddenly. The Master came in, followed by Alexander
Sorell.

"My dear Edward!" said Miss Wenlock, "how late you are!"

"I was caught by a bore, dear, after chapel. Horace couldn't get rid of
his, and I couldn't get rid of mine. But now all is well. How do you do,
Lady Constance? Have you had enough tea, and will you come and see
my books?"

He carried her off, Connie extremely nervous, and wondering into what
bogs she was about to flounder.

But she was a scholar's daughter, and she had lived with books. She
would have scorned to pretend, and her pose, if she had one, was a pose
of ignorance--she claimed less than she might. But the Master soon
discovered that she had many of her father's tastes, that she knew
something of archaeology--he bore it even when she shyly quoted
Lanciani--that she read Latin, and was apparently passionately fond of
some kinds of poetry. And all the time she pleased his tired eyes by her
youth and freshness, and when as she grew at ease with him, and began to
chatter to him about Rome, and how the learned there love one another,
the Master's startling, discordant laugh rang out repeatedly.

The three in the other room heard it.

"She is amusing him," said Miss Wenlock, looking rather bewildered.
"They are generally so afraid of him."

The Master put his head into the drawing-room.

"I am taking Lady Constance into the garden, my dear. Will you three
follow when you like?"

He took her through the old house, with the dim faces of former masters
and college worthies shining softly on its panelled walls, in the golden
lights from the level sun outside, and presently they emerged upon the
garden which lay like an emerald encased on three sides by surfaces of
silver-grey stone, and overlooked by a delicate classical tower designed
by the genius of Christopher Wren. Over one-half of the garden lay an
exquis