"It is so awfully good of you to let me come up here so soon,"
exclaimed Dartmouth. "But what do you suppose I have done to prove my
gratitude?"

"Made the castle your own, I hope."

"I have. I proceeded at once to make myself at home by smashing up
the furniture. One of your handsomest cabinets is now in ruins upon my
bedroom floor."

Sir Iltyd looked at him with a somewhat puzzled glance. He had lived
in seclusion for nearly thirty years, and was unaccustomed to the
facetiousness of the modern youth. "Has anything happened?" he
demanded anxiously.

Dartmouth smiled, but gave an account of the disaster in unadorned
English, and received forgiveness at once. Had he confessed to having
chopped his entire tower to pieces, Sir Iltyd would have listened
without a tightening of the lips, and with the air of a man about to
invite his guest to make a bonfire of the castle if so it pleased him.
As for Weir, her late education made her appreciate the humor of the
situation, and she smiled sympathetically at Harold over her father's
shoulder.

They went into dinner a few moments later, and Sir Iltyd talked a
good deal. Although a man of somewhat narrow limitations and one-sided
views, as was but natural, taking into consideration the fact that his
mental horizon had not been widened out by contact with his
fellow-men for twenty-five years, he was, for a recluse, surprisingly
well-informed upon the topics of the day. Dartmouth could not forbear