read the message and gave an exclamation of annoyance.

"No bad news, I hope," said Lady Susan. Every one else knew that the
news was not good.

"It's only the result of the Derby," he blurted out; "Sadowa won; an
utter outsider."

"Sadowa!" exclaimed Lady Susan; "you don't say so! How remarkable!
It's the first time I've ever backed a horse; in fact I disapprove of
horse-racing, but just for once in a way I put money on this horse, and
it's gone and won."

"May I ask," said Mrs. Packletide, amid the general silence, "why you
put your money on this particular horse. None of the sporting prophets
mentioned it as having an outside chance."

"Well," said Lady Susan, "you may laugh at me, but it was the name that
attracted me. You see, I was always mixed up with the Franco-German
war; I was married on the day that the war was declared, and my eldest
child was born the day that peace was signed, so anything connected
with the war has always interested me. And when I saw there was a
horse running in the Derby called after one of the battles in the
Franco-German war, I said I MUST put some money on it, for once in a
way, though I disapprove of racing. And it's actually won."

There was a general groan. No one groaned more deeply than the
professor of military history.

THE SECRET SIN OF SEPTIMUS BROPE

"Who and what is Mr. Brope?" demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly.

Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct roses,
and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to mental
attention. She was one of those old-fashioned hostesses who consider
that one ought to know something about one's guests, and that the
something ought to be to their credit.

"I believe he comes from Leighton Buzzard," she observed by way of
preliminary explanation.

"In these days of rapid and convenient travel," said Clovis, who was
dispersing a colony of green-fly with visitations of cigarette smoke,
"to come from Leighton Buzzard does not necessarily denote any great
strength of character. It might only mean mere restlessness. Now if
he had left it under a cloud, or as a protest against the incurable and
heartless frivolity of its inhabitants, that would tell us something
about the man and his mission in life."

"What does he do?" pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially.

"He edits the CATHEDRAL MONTHLY," said her hostess, "and he's
enormously learned about memorial brasses and transepts and the