of rooms, and an old piano and a few good books. For, of course,
Ibbetson Hall would be mine and every penny he possessed in the world."

[Illustration:]

All this in confidential French--lest the very clouds should hear
us--and with the familiar thee and thou of blood-relationship, which I
did not care to return.

It did not seem to bode very serious intentions towards Mrs. Deane, and
would scarcely have pleased her mother.

Or else, if something had crossed him, and Mrs. Deane had flirted
outrageously with somebody else, and he had not been asked to sing (or
somebody else had), he would assure me in good round English that I was
the most infernal lout that ever disgraced a drawing-room, or ate a man
out of house and home, and that he was sick and ashamed of me. "Why
can't you sing, you d--d French milksop? The d--d roulade-monger of a
father of yours could sing fast enough, if he could do nothing else,
confound him! Why can't you talk French, you infernal British booby? Why
can't you hand round the tea and muffins, confound you! Why, twice Mrs.
Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief and had to pick it up herself!
What, 'at the other end of the room,' were you? Well, you should have
skipped _across_ the room, and picked it up, and handed it to her with a
pretty speech, like a gentleman! When I was your age I was _always_ on
the lookout for ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs to drop--or their fans! I
never missed _one_!"

Then he would take me out to shoot with him (for it was quite essential
that an English gentleman should be a sportsman)--a terrible ordeal to