unfamiliar, but the old butler beamed on the young heir he
had known from a boy.

Harry shook him heartily by the hand, and asked a dozen questions in a
breath. There was a sprinkling of visitors already in the house, so,
shirking the reception rooms, he made straight for a private passage,
where in a certain study, he knew he should find his uncle.

Lord Bromley seldom had his large house empty and there were ample means
of entertainment for guests, but, like a good general, he had a secure
retreat from the perils of boredom in a sacred suite of rooms, to which
no one but his nephew had access. To Harry himself this particular study
was invested with a certain amount of solemnity, he had been summoned
there on so many notable occasions,--once to be sentenced to a thrashing
from a malevolent tutor who had reported him, afterwards, before going to
school, to receive good advice, not unsweetened by a tip. Cheques had
been dealt out there, and his uncle's views for his future guidance
inculcated on him. Dutton entered now with somewhat of the feelings of a
truant schoolboy, for had he not been on shore a month without coming
near the place or even writing?

He murmured something about London and business, which the old peer
received with the merest elevation of the eyebrows, and was evidently not
going to be unpleasant about it. He knew his nephew was just off a voyage
and in possession of a handsome cheque, and was not ill pleased that he
should have had his fling, and have done with it before coming down.

Besides, if some plans of his succeeded, he would soon have to _range_
himself.

Finding it was all right, and Lord Bromley disposed to be sociable, Harry
made himself as entertaining as possible, and was communicative enough
about everything but the proceedings of the last few weeks.

"I think you know most of the people in the house," said his uncle, as
Dutton was retiring to dress, "except, perhaps, one or two men. Lady
Calvert has brought her daughter here. She was not out, you know, when
you last went to sea."

"I remember her, though; projecting teeth and--"

"She will probably drop into all that Durnford property now Lionel is
dead."

When he came down to dinner, Lord Bromley introduced him very
particularly to the few strangers present, who all thought how fond his
uncle seemed of him, and that he would surely be the heir.

Dutton, like most careless dressing men, looked best in the regulation
simp