ople had departed on the serious
business of dining; but the evening was beautiful, and these two were
tempted to remain and watch the sea.

'You mean Mr. Egremont,' Annabel said.

'Yes. I wonder very much what he will be at my age. He won't be
anything particular, of course.'

'No, I don't suppose he will do anything remarkable,' the girl assented
impartially.

'Yet he might have done,' recommenced her father, with some annoyance,
as if his remark had not elicited the answer he looked for. 'This
mill-work of his I consider mere discipline. I should have thought two
years of it enough; three certainly ought to be. A fourth, and he will
never do anything else.'

'What else should he do?'

Mr. Newthorpe laughed a little.

'There's only one thing for such a fellow to do nowadays. Let him write
something.'

'Write?' Annabel mused. 'Yes, I suppose there is nothing else. Yet he
happens to have sufficient means.'

'Do you mean it for an epigram? Well, it will pass. True, there's the
hardship of his position. There's nothing for him to do but to write,
yet he is handicapped by his money. I should have done something worth
the doing, if I had had to write for bread and cheese. Let him show
that he has something in him, in spite of the fact that he has never
gone without his dinner. Yes, but that would prove him an extraordinary
man, and we agree that he is nothing of the kind.'

'Haven't you ever felt a sort of uneasy shame when you have heard of
another acquaintance taking up the pen?'

'Of course I have. I've felt the same when I've heard of someone being
born.'

'Suppose I announced to you that I was writing a novel?'

'I am a philosopher, Bell.'

'Precisely. It would be disagreeable to me if I heard that Mr. Egremont
was writing a novel. If he published anything very good, it wouldn't
trouble one so much after the event. I don't see why he should write. I
think he'd better continue to give half his day to something practical,
and the other half to the pleasures of a man of culture. It will
preserve his balance.'

'Bella mia, you are greatly disillusioned for a young girl.'

'I don't feel that the term is applicable to me. I am disillusioned,
father, because I am getting reasonably old.'

'You live too much alone.'

'I prefer it.'

Mr. Newthorpe seemed to be turning over a thought.

'I suppose,' he said at length, with a glance at his daughter, 'that
what you have just said explains our friend's re