d her now, when I know
the value of things."

"Suppose you should find her now--within a reasonable time. What would
you do?"

"Marry her," he exclaimed promptly. "Marry her and take her to Grenoble,
and live the life my father lived before me."

She did not reply, but rose, and he followed her to the shaded corner of
the porch where they usually sat. The bundle of yellow-stained envelopes
he had brought were lying on the table, and Honora picked them up
mechanically.

"I have been thinking," she said as she removed the elastics, "that it is
a mistake to begin a biography by the enumeration of one's ancestors.
Readers become frightfully bored before they get through the first
chapter."

"I'm beginning to believe," he laughed, "that you will have to write this
one alone. All the ideas I have got so far have been yours. Why shouldn't
you write it, and I arrange the material, and talk about it! That appears
to be all I'm good for."

If she allowed her mind to dwell on the vista he thus presented, she did
not betray herself.

"Another thing," she said, "it should be written like fiction."

"Like fiction?"

"Fact should be written like fiction, and fiction like fact. It's
difficult to express what I mean. But this life of your father deserves
to be widely known, and it should be entertainingly done, like Lockhart,
or Parton's works--"

An envelope fell to the floor, spilling its contents. Among them were
several photographs.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "how beautiful! What place is this?"

"I hadn't gone over these letters," he answered. "I only got them
yesterday from Cecil Grainger. These are some pictures of Grenoble which
must leave been taken shortly before my father died."

She gazed in silence at the old house half hidden by great maples and
beeches, their weighted branches sweeping the ground. The building was of
wood, painted white, and through an archway of verdure one saw the
generous doorway with its circular steps, with its fan-light above, and
its windows at the side. Other quaint windows, some of them of triple
width, suggested an interior of mystery and interest.

"My great-great-grandfather, Alexander Chiltern, built it," he said, "on
land granted to him before the Revolution. Of course the house has been
added to since then, but the simplicity of the original has always been
kept. My father put on the conservatory, for instance," and Chiltern
pointed to a portion at the end of one of the long l