may be quite seemly afterwards, and none of their amiable elders
regarded their devotion with cynicism.

"All right, uncle!" said Henry Lennox.

He rose--a big fellow with heavy shoulders, a clean-shaven,
youthful face, and flaxen hair. He had been handsome, save for a
nose with a broken bridge, but his pale brown eyes were fine, and
his firm mouth and chin well modelled. Imagination and reflection
marked his countenance.

Sir Walter claimed thirty points on his scoring board, and gave a
miss with the spot ball.

"I win to-night," he said.

He was a small, very upright man, with a face that seemed to belong
to his generation, and an expression seldom to be seen on a man
younger than seventy. Life had not puzzled him; his moderate
intellect had taken it as he found it, and, through the magic
glasses of good health, good temper, and great wealth, judged
existence a desirable thing and quite easy to conduct with credit.
"You only want patience and a brain," he always declared. Sir
Walter wore an eyeglass. He was growing bald, but preserved a pair
of grey whiskers still of respectable size. His face, indeed,
belied him, for it was moulded in a stern pattern. One had guessed
him a martinet until his amiable opinions and easy-going
personality were manifested. The old man was not vain; he knew that
a world very different from his own extended round about him. But
he was puzzle-headed, and had never been shaken from his life-long