way to his home from the railway station a
few days after the conversation above
recorded, and the clanging of his own great
gates as they shut behind him echoed and
re-echoed through the vast deserted space.
The gorgeous porter and all the regiment
of domestics were down at Westhope, the
family place in Norfolk, so the carriage
gates were opened by a middle-aged female
with her head tied up for toothache, and
Mrs. Mason, the housekeeper, with a female
retinue, was waiting to receive his lordship
on the steps. Always affable to old
servants of the family, whose age, long service,
and comfortable comely appearance do him
credit, as he thinks, Lord Hetherington
exchanges a few gracious words with Mrs.
Mason, desires that Mr. Byrne shall be
shown in to him so soon as he arrives, and
makes his way across the great hall to the
library. The shutters of his room have
been opened, but there has been no time
given for further preparations, and the big
writing-table, the globes, and the bookcases
are all enswathed in ghostly holland drapery.
The bust of the ninth earl, Lord
Hetherington's father, has slipped its head out of
its covering, and looks astonished and as if
it had been suddenly called up in its night-
clothes. My lord looks dismayed, as well
he may, at the dreary room, but finds no
more cheerful outlook from the window
into the little square garden, where a few
melancholy leaves are rotting in the dirty
corners into which they have drifted, and
where Mrs. Mason's grandson, unconscious
of observation, is throwing stones at a cab.
My lord rattles the loose silver in his
trousers' pockets, walks up to the fireplace
and inspects his tongue in the looking-
glass, whistles thoughtfully, sighs heavily,
and is beginning to think he shall go mad,
when Mrs. Mason opens the door and
announces "Mr. Byrne."

"How do, Byrne?" says his lordship,
much relieved. "Glad to see you! Come
up on purpose! Want your help!"

Mr. Byrne returns his lordship's salutations,
and quietly asks in what way he can
be of use. His lordship is rather taken
aback at being so suddenly brought to
book, but says, with some hesitation,

"Well, not exactly in your own way,
Byrne; I don't think I shall do any more
what-d'ye-call-ums, birds, any more—for
the present, I mean, for the present. Her
ladyship thought those last screens so good
that it would be useless to try to improve
on them, and so she's given me—I mean
I've got—another idea."

Mr. Byrne, with the faintest dawn of a
cynical grin on his face, bows and waits.

"Fact is," pursues his lordship, "my
place down at Westhope, full of most
monstrously interesting records of our family
from the time of—oh, the Crusaders and
Guy Fawkes and the Pretender, and all
that kind of thing; records, don't you
know, old papers, and what they call
documents, you know, and those kind of things.
Well, I want to take all these things and
make 'em into a sort of history of the
family, you know, to write it and have it
published, don't they call it? You know
what I mean."

Mr. Byrne intimates that they do call it
published, and that he apprehends his
lordship's meaning completely.

"Well, then, Byrne," his lordship
continues, "what I sent for you for is this.
'Tisn't in your line, I know, but I've found
you clever and all that kind of thing, and
above your station. Oh, I mean it, I do
indeed, and I want you to find me some
person, respectable and educated and all
that, who will just go through these papers,
you know, and select the right bits, you
know, and write them down, you know,
and, in point of fact, just do——You know
what I mean!"

Mr. Byrne, with a radiant look which
his face but seldom wore, averred that he
not merely understood what was meant, but
that he could recommend the very man
whom his lordship required, a young man
of excellent address, good education, and
great industry.

"And he'll understand——?" asked
Lord Hetherington, hesitatingly, and with
a curious look at Mr. Byrne.

"Everything!" replied the old man.
"Your lordship's book will be the most
successful thing you've done!"

"Then bring him to the Clarendon at
twelve the day after to-morrow! As he's
to live in the house, and that kind of thing,
her ladyship must see him before he's
engaged!"

"I suppose I may congratulate you, my
boy!" said Byrne to Joyce; a day or two
afterwards, as they walked away from the
Clarendon Hotel after their interview,
"though you don't look much pleased
about it!"

"I'm an ungrateful brute," said Walter;
"I ought to have thanked you the instant
the door closed! For it is entirely owing
to you and your kindness that I have
obtained this splendid chance! But——"