wise youth. "I don't think her hair was black.
Red, wasn't it? I shouldn't compare her to Bellona; though, no doubt,
she's as ready to spill blood. Look at her! She does seem to scent
carnage. I see your idea. No; I should liken her to Diana emerged from
the tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play among the gods.
Depend upon it--they tell us nothing of the matter--Olympus shrouds the
story--but you may be certain that when she left the pretty shepherd she
had greater vogue than Venus up aloft."

Brayder joined them.

"See Mrs. Mount go by?" he said.

"Oh, that's Mrs. Mount!" cried Adrian.

"Who's Mrs. Mount?" Richard inquired.

"A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy."

"Like to know her?" drawled the Hon. Peter.

Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount passed out of sight
and out of the conversation.

The young man wrote submissive letters to his father. "I have remained
here waiting to see you now five weeks," he wrote. "I have written to
you three letters, and you do not reply to them. Let me tell you again
how sincerely I desire and pray that you will come, or permit me to come
to you and throw myself at your feet, and beg my forgiveness, and hers.
She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I am very wretched, sir. Believe
me, there is nothing I would not do to regain your esteem and the love I
fear I have unhappily forfeited. I will remain another week in the hope
of hearing from you, or seeing you. I beg of you, sir, not to drive me
mad. Whatever you ask of me I will consent to."

"Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as he read. "There is
nothing he would not do! He will remain another week and give me that
final chance! And it is I who drive him mad! Already he is beginning to
cast his retribution on my shoulders."

Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of the way. A
Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune without hearing of it, and
the author of The Pilgrim'S Scrip in trouble found London too hot for
him. He quitted London to take refuge among the mountains; living there
in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book.

Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment of his son. Had
he construed it, it would have looked ugly; and it settled to a vague
principle that the young man should be tried and tested.

"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live with his equals
for a term. If he loves me he will read my wishes." Thus he explained
his p