us, and Bedevere are the descendants of that dog in
the picture?"

"Yes."

"No wonder they give themselves such airs."

"Do you hear that, boys?" said Antony, turning to the three, who had
again followed us. "My Comtesse says you give yourselves airs. Come
and die for her to show her your real sentiments."

The three great fellows advanced in their dignified way, casting
adoring glances at their master.

"Now die, all of you!"

They sneezed and curled up their lips, and made the usual grimaces of
dogs when they are moved and self-conscious, but they all three lay
flat down at my feet.

"I _am_ flattered," I said, "and I have not even a biscuit to give
you."

"We are not so sordid as that at Dane Mount. We do not die for
biscuits, but because we love the lady," said Antony.

I bent down and kissed Ulfus, who was nearest to me.

"Now I am going to show you some Thornhirst pictures and some older
Athelstans that are in the hall and the dining-room, and a portrait
of my mother that I have in my own smoking-room."

Antony made the most interesting guide. There was something amusing
and to the point about all his comments. I soon knew the different
characteristics of each member of the family. One or two, especially
of the Thornhirsts, are wonderfully like him--the same level, dark
eyebrows and firm mouths.

"This is my sanctum," he said, at last, opening a door down a
corridor, and we went into a large room with a lower ceiling than the
rest of the apartments I had been into. It is panelled with cedar-wood
also and sparely hung with old prints. A delicious smell of burning
pine-logs again greeted me. The thick, silk curtains were drawn. The
lamps were softly shaded. An old dog of the same family as the three
knights basked before the fire. It was all cosey and homelike.

"Oh! this is a nice room, too!" I exclaimed.

"I spend a good deal of time here. One grows to like one's rooms."

His mother's portrait hangs over the fireplace, a charming face, whose
beauty is not even disguised by the hideous fashions of 1870, when it
was painted.

"She died when I was in Russia," said Antony.

My eyes fell on the mantel-piece. The narrow ledge held three
photographs, one of a man, one of Lady Tilchester, and the centre
one--an amateur production, evidently--of a little girl with bare
feet, putting one fat toe into a stream, her hat hanging down her
back, and her face bent down looking at the water.

"What a dear