"No," she answered, behind the veil. "We
go on with my inquiries."

"Inquiries after a dead man?"

"Inquiries after the dead man's son?"

"Mr. Noel Vanstone?"

"Yes; Mr. Noel Vanstone."

Not having a veil to let down over my own
face, I stooped and picked up the newspaper.
Her devilish determination quite upset me for
the moment. I actually had to steady myself,
before I could speak to her again.

"Are the new inquiries as harmless as the old
ones?" I asked.

"Quite as harmless."

"What am I expected to find out?"

"I wish to know whether Mr. Noel Vanstone
remains at Brighton after the funeral."

"And if not?"

"If not, I shall want to know his new address,
wherever it may be."

"Yes. And what next?"

"I wish you to find out next, if all the father's
money goes to the son."

I began to see her drift. The word money
relieved me: I felt quite on my own ground again.

"Anything more?" I asked.

"Only one thing more," she answered.
"Make sure, if you please, whether Mrs. Lecount,
the housekeeper, remains or not in Mr. Noel
Vanstone's service."

Her voice altered a little, as she mentioned
Mrs. Lecount's name: she is evidently sharp
enough to distrust the housekeeper already.

"My expenses are to be paid as usual?" I said.

"As usual."

"When am I expected to leave for Brighton?"

"As soon as you can."

She rose, and left the room. After a momentary
doubt, I decided on executing the new
commission. The more private inquiries I conduct for
my fair relative, the harder she will find it to get
rid of hers truly, Horatio Wragge.

There is nothing to prevent my starting for
Brighton to-morrow. So to-morrow, I go. If
Mr. Noel Vanstone succeeds to his father's
property, he is the only human being possessed of
pecuniary blessings, who fails to inspire me with
a feeling of unmitigated envy.

SUMMER.

AT twenty minutes past five, in the afternoon
of this Saturday, June the twenty-first, the sun,
this year, apparently intrudes into a portion of the
sky ceded to the potentate who signs himself
§; which signature, in conjunction with those
of other celestials, has brought honour to many
a handsome cheque in favour of astrologers and
almanack-makers. He next takes the liberty of
traversing, without passport or apology, the
domain ruled over by that fierce and fiery potentate
?, quitting it to invade the realm allotted
to lady ??, who, although a maiden, is still a
hot-tempered and peppery sovereign. At twenty-eight
minutes past seven in the morning of
Tuesday, September the twenty-third, he
evacuates her most vestal majesty's dominions,
thereby leaving three signs of the Zodiac
(namely, Cancer, Leo, Virgo—the Crab, the
Lion, and the Virgin) at peace, as far as he,
the Sun, is concerned, until about the same
time twelve months.

But the Sun's intrusion is only apparent; he
is innocent of any trespass. It is we who are
the guilty parties. Stealing round a corner of
our elliptic orbit, we put the unoffending sun
between ourselves and those respected constellations.
With regard to them, we make him
stand in his own light. The interval of time
which elapses between the first and last of
the aforesaid minutes is called by mortals
SUMMER—but only in the northern hemisphere.

Also; when, at any given place, the sun at
noon attains the greatest height in the heavens
which he ever reaches at that place, the summer
of that place begins. When his noontide
height is exactly the mean between his greatest
and his lowest noontide heights, summer ends,
and autumn begins. This second definition holds
good for both the northern and the southern hemispheres
—for our friends at Sydney, as well as
our cousins in Scotland. According to either
rule, it is clear that our Midsummer-day, falling
at the opening instead of the middle of summer,
is a popular misnomer.

The seasons being reversed in the southern
hemisphere, the feast of John the Baptist, our
Midsummer-day, the twenty-fourth of June, is
for the south hemispherians the precursor of
winter, just as Christmas-day, our beau-ideal of
winter time, falls on their summer heat. Roast
beef foaming from the spit, and rich plum-pudding
blazing hot, must lose their charms with the
thermometer at ninety degrees. It seems a
perversity on the part of turkeys to be out of
season on the twenty-fifth of December; yet
they really are busy laying eggs and rearing their
young, and cannot spare time to come to table.
It is the opening of the Australian summer.
While we are welcoming our friends with closed
curtains and cannel-coal fires, they are treating
theirs to a cool reception with the help of
fans, ices, and cucumbers. Summer is summer
all the world over, and besides arrives only once a
year, answering everywhere to Spenser's portrait:

Then came the jolly Summer, being dight
    In a thin silken cassock colour'd green,
That was unlined all, to be more light:
    And on his Head a Girlond well beseen
He wore, from which as he had chauffed been
    The Sweat did drop; and in his Hand he bore
A Bow and Shafts, as he in Forest green
    Had hunted late the Libbard or the Boar,
And now would bathe his Limbs, with Labour heated
   sore.

All summer long, the sun is going down hill;
his noontide altitude is daily less. The days
are longer than the nights, but each day is
shorter than its predecessor. As soon as the
length of the night equals that of the day,
summer comes to a conclusion. But though, from
the first, the length of the day decreases, the
heat goes on increasing until about the middle of