clipped moustache. There was an indefinable courtliness of manner about
him which recalled the days of lace ruffles and knee-breeches. The two
girls rose to greet him with unfeigned delight.

"Uncle!" cried Nan. "How dear of you to come just when our spirits were
at their lowest ebb!"

"My dears!" He kissed his niece and shook hands with Penelope. Nan
pushed an armchair towards the fire and tendered her cigarette case.

"You needn't be afraid of them, Uncle David," she informed him
reassuringly. "They're not gaspers."

"Sybarite! With the same confidence as if they were my own." And Lord
St. John helped himself smilingly.

"And why," he continued, "has the barometer fallen?"

Nan laughed.

"You can't expect it to be always 'set fair'!"

"I'd like it to be," returned St. John simply.

A fugitive thought flashed through Nan's mind that he and Peter Mallory
were merely young and old representatives of a similar type of man. She
could imagine Mallory growing into the same gracious old manhood as her
uncle.

"A propos," pursued Lord St. John, with a twinkle, "your handmaiden