range of family portraits leading to the library door.
There was a vacant space here and there--"room for your missus, too, my
boy, when you get her!" as his grandfather had once put it.

"Why, you've had a long day, Aldous, all by yourself," said Lord
Maxwell, turning sharply round at the sound of the opening door. "What's
kept you so late?"

His spectacles fell forward as he spoke, and the old man shut them in
his hand, peering at his grandson through the shadows of the room. He
was sitting by a huge fire, an "Edinburgh Review" open on his knee. Lamp
and fire-light showed a finely-carried head, with a high wave of snowy
hair thrown back, a long face delicately sharp in the lines, and an
attitude instinct with the alertness of an unimpaired bodily vigour.

"The birds were scarce, and we followed them a good way," said Aldous,
as he came up to the fire. "Rickman kept me on the farm, too, a good
while, with interminable screeds about the things he wants done for
him."

"Oh, there is no end to Rickman," said Lord Maxwell, good-humouredly.
"He pays his rent for the amusement of getting it back again. Landowning
will soon be the most disinterested form of philanthropy known to
mankind. But I have some news for you! Here is a letter from Barton by
the second post"--he named an old friend of his own, and a Cabinet
Minister of the day. "Look at it. You will see he says they can't
possibly carry on beyond January. Half their men are becoming
unmanageable, and S----'s bill, to which they are committed, will
certainly dish them. Parliament will meet in January, and he thinks an
amendment to the Address will finish it. All this confidential, of
course; but he saw no harm in letting me know. So now, my boy, you will
have your work cut out for you this winter! Two or three evenings a
week--you'll not get off with less. Nobody's plum drops into his mouth
nowadays. Barton tells me, too, that he hears young Wharton will
certainly stand for the Durnford division, and will be down upon us
directly. He will make himself as disagreeable to us and the Levens as
he can--that we may be sure of. We may be thankful for one small mercy,
that his mother has departed this life! otherwise you and I would have
known _furens quid femina posset_!"

The old man looked up at his grandson with a humorous eye. Aldous was
standing absently before the fire, and did not reply immediately.

"Come, come, Aldous!" said Lord Maxwell with a touch of impati