the _Morning Post_, to-morrow. I ask it--please?"

"Not even to Cyril? You have forgotten that he is coming up from Uncle
Charles' to go back to Eton," his mother said, "and the girls already
know."

"Oh! Cyril. By Jove! I had forgotten! Yes, tell him; he is a first class
chap, he'll understand, and, I say"--and he pulled some sovereigns from
his pocket--"do give him these from me for this term."

Then with a smile he went.

And a few minutes afterwards a small, slender boy of fourteen, with only
Eton's own inimitable self-confidence and delicious swagger printed upon
his every line, drove up to the door, and, paying for the taxi in a
lordly way, came into his mother's morning-room. There had been a gap in
the family after Tristram's appearance, caused by the death, from
diphtheria, of two other boys; then came the two girls of twenty and
nineteen respectively and, lastly, Cyril.

His big, blue eyes rounded with astonishment and interest when he heard
the important news. All he said was:

"Well, she must be a corker, if Tristram thinks her good enough. But
what a beastly nuisance! He won't go to Canada now, I suppose, and we
shan't have that ranch."



CHAPTER VI