end of that slope. Probably a plain; at the worst the upward rise
of ordinary life.

That is what we thought, if we thought at all. Certainly we
never dreamed of a precipice. Why should we, who were young, by
comparison, quite healthy and very rich? Who thinks of precipices
under such circumstances, when disaster seems to be eliminated
and death is yet a long way off?

And yet we ought to have done so, because we should have known
that smooth surfaces without impediment to the runners often end
in something of the kind.

I am bound to say that when we returned home to Fulcombe, where
of course we met with a great reception, including the ringing
(out of tune) of the new peal of bells that I had given to the
church, Bastin made haste to point this out.

"Your wife seems a very nice and beautiful lady, Arbuthnot," he
reflected aloud after dinner, when Mrs. Bastin, glowering as
usual, though what at I do not know, had been escorted from the
room by Natalie, "and really, when I come to think of it, you are
an unusually fortunate person. You possess a great deal of money,
much more than you have any right to; which you seem to have done
very little to earn and do not spend quite as I should like you
to do, and this nice property, that ought to be owned by a great
number of people, as, according to the views you express, I
should have thought you would acknowledge, and everything else
that a man can want. It is very strange that you should be so
favoured and not because of any particular merits of your own