rtrait of your own great-grandmother--"

"He did say so!" broke in Sanderson, exultantly. "He said it was an
ancestress. Fletcher, you're a vulgar fraud. You've got no ancestress.
You bought her. There's a sale-ticket still on the frame under the
projection at the right-hand lower corner. I saw it."

Sanderson was a small man and walked about perpetually, except when
taking food: sometimes then. He was a licensed insulter of his friends,
and now stood before the picture in a belligerent attitude. The
Professor stroked his amber beard and smiled down on Sanderson.

"True, O Sanderson; and at the same time untrue. I did buy the picture,
and the lady was my great-grandmother once, but she did not like the
position and soon gave it up. This picture must have been done after she
had given it up."

"Is this a conundrum or blather, invented to hide your ignominy in a
cloud of words?" asked Sanderson.

"It's a _hors d'oeuvre_ before the story," interposed Ian Stewart,
throwing back his tall dark head and looking up at the picture through
his eye-glasses, his handsome face alive with interest. "'Tak' awa' the
kickshaws,' Fletcher, 'and bring us the cauf.'"

The Professor gathered his full beard in one hand and smiled
deprecatingly.

"I don't know how the ladies will like my ex-great-grandmother's story.
It was a bit of a scandal at the time."

"Never mind, Mr. Fletcher," cried a young married woman, with a face
like a seraph, "we're all educated now, and scandal about a lady with
her waist under her arms becomes simply classical."

"Not so bad as that, Mrs. Shaw, I assure you," returned the Professor;
"but I dare say you all know as much as I do about my great-grandmother,
for she was the well-known Lady Hammerton."

There were sounds of interest and surprise, for most of the party knew
her name, and were curious to learn how she came to be Professor
Fletcher's great-grandmother. Mr. Fletcher explained:

"My great-grandfather was a distinguished professor in Edinburgh a
hundred years ago. When he was a widower of forty with a family, he was
silly enough to fall in love with a little miss of sixteen. He taught
her Latin and Greek--which was all very well--and married her, which was
distinctly unwise. She had one son--my grandfather--and then ran away
with an actor from London. After that she made a certain sensation on
the stage, but I suspect she was clever enough to see that her real
successes were personal ones; a