l morning, with the
sunlight lying on the lawn and lighting up the old worn detail of the
carved cornices, he recovered for a time the boyish sense of ecstasy of
the first morning at home after the return from school. While he was
breakfasting, a scribbled note from Jack was brought in.

"Just heard you arrived last night; it's an awful bore, but I have to
go away to-day--an old engagement made, I need hardly say, FOR me and
not BY me; I shall turn up to-morrow about this time. No WORK, I think.
A day of calm resolution and looking forward manfully to the future! My
father and sister are going to dine at the Manor to-night. I shall be
awfully interested to hear what you think of them. He has been looking
up some things to talk about, and I can tell you, you'll have a dose.
Maud is frightened to death.--Yours

"Jack.

"P.S.--I advise you to begin COUNTING at once."

A little later, Miss Merry turned up, to ask Howard if he would care to
look round the house. "Mrs. Graves would like," she said, "to show it
you herself, but she is easily tired, and can't stand about much." They
went round together, and Howard was surprised to find that it was not
nearly as large a house as it looked. Much space was agreeably wasted
in corridors and passages, and there were huge attics with great
timbered supports, needed to sustain the heavy stone tiling, which had
never been converted into living rooms. There was the hall, which took
up a considerable part of one side; out of this, towards the road,
opened the little parlour where he had breakfasted, and above it was a
library full of books, with its oriel overhanging the road, and two
windows looking into the garden. Then there was the big drawing-room.
Upstairs there were but a half a dozen bedrooms. The offices and the
servants' bedrooms were in the wing on the road. There was but little
furniture in the house. Mr. Graves had had a preference for large bare
rooms; and such furniture as there was, was all for use and not for
ornament, so that there was a refreshing lack of any aesthetic pose
about it. There were but few pictures, but most of the rooms were
panelled and needed no other ornament. There was a refreshing sense of
space everywhere, and Howard thought that he had never seen a house he
liked so well. Miss Merry chirped away, retailing little bits of
history. Howard now for the first time learned that Mr. Graves had
retired early from business with a considerable fortun