"I am glad it is easy," said Howard, "you don't know how many of my
serves go into the net!"

"Lawn-tennis!" said Mr. Sandys from the other side of the room.
"There's a good game, Howard! I am not much of a hand at it myself,
but I enjoy playing. I don't mind making a spectacle of myself. One
misses many good things by being afraid of looking a fool. What
does it matter, I say to myself, as long as one doesn't FEEL a
fool? You will come and play at the vicarage, I hope. Indeed, I
want you to go and come just as you like. We are relations, you
know, in a sort of way--at least connections. I don't know if you
go in for genealogy--it's rather a hobby of mine; it fills up
little bits of time, you know. I could reel you off quite a list of
names, but Mrs. Graves doesn't care for genealogy, I know."

"Oh, not that!" said Mrs. Graves. "I think it is very interesting.
But I rather agree with the minister who advised his flock to pray
for good ancestors."

"Ha! ha!" said Mr. Sandys, "excellent, that; but it is really very
curious you know, that the further one goes back the more one's
ancestors increase. Talk of over-population; why if one goes back
thirty or forty generations, the world would be over-populated with
the ancestors of any one of us. I remember posing a very clever
mathematician with that once; but, as a fact, it's quite the
reverse, one finds. Are you interested in neolithic men, Howard?
There are graves of them all over the down--it is not certain if
they were neolithic, but they had very curious burial customs.
Knees up to the chin, you know. Well, well, it's all very