civil genteel nobleman enough.'

'Took the house for fishing, did he?'

'That's what they say, and as it can be for nothing else I suppose
it's true. But, in final, his health's not good, 'a b'lieve; he's
been living too rithe. The London smoke got into his wyndpipe, till
'a couldn't eat. However, I shouldn't mind having the run of his
kitchen.'

'And what is his name?'

'Ah--there you have me! 'Tis a name no man's tongue can tell, or
even woman's, except by pen-and-ink and good scholarship. It begins
with X, and who, without the machinery of a clock in's inside, can
speak that? But here 'tis--from his letters.' The postman with his
walking-stick wrote upon the ground,

'BARON VON XANTEN'



CHAPTER III



The day, as she had prognosticated, turned out fine; for weather-
wisdom was imbibed with their milk-sops by the children of the Exe
Vale. The impending meeting excited Margery, and she performed her
duties in her father's house with mechanical unconsciousness.