l
men who have risen in their profession, had attained an infinite
knowledge of human nature.

"And you will be so kind as to write me a note, stating your
opinion--about the rest--and--er--immunity from letters--and all that,"
said the Bishop, depositing with studied thoughtlessness a double fee on
the table, "for the benefit of my--my family. She is--they are--I
mean--that is, she might not realise the importance of absolute rest,
and"--as a brilliant thought occurred to him--"and you'll give me a
prescription."

"Certainly," said Sir Joseph. "I'll do both now."

"Thanks," murmured the Bishop, and, receiving the precious documents,
he took his leave.

The great physician's letter he put carefully in an inside pocket; the
prescription he never remembered to get filled.

"A month," he said to himself; "that ought to be time enough." And he
hailed a cab, and driving promptly to the nearest American steamship
office, he engaged a passage forthwith.

"I wonder what Sir Joseph thought about it," he meditated, as he paid
for his ticket. In this respect, however, he did his adviser an
injustice. Sir Joseph never thought about it at all. It was not part of
his profession.

* * * * *

Most people would have united in saying that the Bishop of Blanford
was an exceedingly fortunate man. No one was possessed of an estate
boasting fairer lawns or more noble beeches, and the palace was a
singularly successful combination of ecclesiastical antiquity and
nineteenth-century comfort. The cathedral was a gem, and its boy choir
the despair of three neighbouring sees, while, owing to a certain
amount of worldly wisdom on the part of former investors of the
revenues, the bishopric was among the most handsomely endowed in
England. Yet his Lordship was not happy. All his life long there had
been a blot upon his enjoyment, and that blot was his sister, Miss
Matilda Banborough.

Miss Matilda was blatantly good, an intolerant virtue that accounted for
multitudes of sins in other people. Her one ambition was to bring up the
Bishop in the way she thought he should go, and hitherto she had been
wonderfully successful. All through his married life she had resided at
the palace and been the ruling power, and when his wife had died twenty
years before, snuffed out by the cold austerity of the Bishop's sister
and the ecclesiastical monotony of Blanford, Miss Matilda had assumed
the reins of power, and had nev