y dying,
for "that Rupert, the best of the lot." And her son would say: "I
s'pose he meant Daddy, mother." "Yes," she would answer. "You see,
you were all Ruperts: Grandfather Rupert Ray, Daddy Rupert Ray, and
Sonny Rupert Ray, my own little Sonny Ray." (Mothers talk in this
absurd fashion, and Mrs. Ray was the chief of such offenders.)

But quite the masterpiece of all her tales was this. One summer
morning, when the Boulogue promenade was bright and crowded and
lively, the Colonel was seated with his grandson beside him. A
little distance away sat Rupert's mother, who was just about as shy
of the Colonel as the Colonel was shy of her (which fact accounts,
probably, for Rupert Ray's growing up into the shy boy we knew).
Well, all of a sudden, the boy got up, stood immediately in front of
his grandsire, and leaned forward against his knees. There was no
mistaking the meaning in the child's eyes; they said plainly: "This
is entirely the best attitude for story-telling, so please."

The officer, with military quickness, summed up the perilous
situation on his front; he had suffered himself to be bombarded by a
pair of patient eyes. And now he must either acknowledge his
incompetence by a shameful retreat, or he must stir up the dump of
his imagination and see what stories it contained. So with no small
apprehension, he drew upon his inventive genius.

A wonderful story resulted--wonderful as a prophetic parable of
things which the Colonel would not live to see. Perhaps it was only
coincidence that it should be so; perhaps the approach of death
endowed the old gentleman with the gift of dim prophecy--did he not
know that he would follow the swallows away?--perhaps all the Rays,
when they stand in that shadow, possess a mystic vision. Certainly
the boy Rupert--but there! I knew I was in danger of spoiling his
story.

If the Colonel's tale this morning was wonderful to the listener,
the author suspected that he was plagiarising. The hero was a knight
of peculiar grace, who sustained the spotless name of Sir R----
R----. He was not very handsome, having hair that was neither gold
nor brown, and a brace of absurdly sea-blue eyes. But he was
distinguished by many estimable qualities; he was English, for
example, and not French, very brave, very sober, and quite fond of
an elderly relation. And one day he was undoubtedly (although the
Colonel's conscience pricked him) plunging on foot through a dense
forest to the aid of a