entime cigar; and was set
up in good spirits for the day! Such was Barty Josselin, the most
ready lover of his kind that ever existed, the slave of his last
impression.

And thus he lived under the shadow of the sword of Damocles for many
months; on and off, for years--indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is
good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and
puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves;
it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things--too keenly
about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick
sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such
weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair--a
panoply, an armory, a very arsenal! And we grow to learn in time that
when the hair gives way and the big thing falls, the blow is not half so
bad as the fright had been, even if it kills us; and more often than not
it is but the shadow of a sword, after all; a bogie that has kept us off
many an evil track--perhaps even a blessing in disguise! And in the end,
down comes some other sword from somewhere else and cuts for us the
Gordian knot of our brief tangled existence, and solves the riddle and
sets us free.

This is a world of surprises, where little ever happens but the
unforeseen, which is seldom worth meeting halfway! And these moral
reflections of mine are quite unnecessary and somewhat obvious, but
they harm nobody, and are very soothing to make and utter at my time
of life. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man and forgive him his
maudlin garrulity....

* * * * *

One afternoon, lolling in deep dejection on the top of a little sandy
hillock, a "dune," and plucking the long coarse grass, he saw a very
tall elderly lady, accompanied by her maid, coming his way along the
asphalt path that overlooked the sea--or rather, that prevented the
sea from overlooking the land and overflowing it!

She was in deep black and wore a thick veil.

With a little jump of surprise he recognized his aunt Caroline--Lady
Caroline Grey--of all his aunts the aunt who had loved him the best
as a boy--whom he had loved the best.

She was a Roman Catholic, and very devout indeed--a widow, and
childless now. And between her and Barty a coolness had fallen
during the last few years--a heavy raw thick mist of cold
estrangement; and all on account of his London life and the
notoriety he had ac