locked up in his store-room?" said one of the
officers, wisely; "every family has, you know."

"An excellent remark, Mr. Still," said Mr.
Tilney. "(Wine with you?) Shouldn't be
surprised if it was the case of our friend. There he
is, walking about."

The company all looked to the window.

"We are making the man into Conrad the
Corsair, or Timour the Tartar," said Ross,
impatiently. "Let him walk if he likes. I'm sick of
these mysteries, and making up mysteries. I
suppose he's only a common banking man from
London, that gets up and eats his breakfast like
others. Yes, yes, Ada Millwood, that frowning
and scornful curling of your mouth will give you
wrinkles, if you don't mind."

Here Mr. Tillotson entered again.

"Better now?" called Mr. Tilney to him.
"Ah!" thought so—quite right."

"I get violent headaches," said Mr. Tillotson,
apologetically, "which come on at the most
out-of-the-way times, making every one about me
uncomfortable."

After that, Mr. Ross became sulky, and scarcely
spoke during dinner. Soon Mr. Tillotson's pale
face began to warm up. There was an influence
in his manner which brought him to the surface
of any conversation, just as in society a man is
respected. It was no wonder, then, that Still
should ask Canby who that "buffer" (or "duffer")
was, who kept putting in his oar where he wasn't
wanted? To whom Canby, who would have
been glad to tell the beer-cart story many times
more, said he "'was some banking prig or other."
When the ladies were gone up, his supremacy
was confirmed. Mr. Tilney, a man of the world,
had a deep respect for "information." But still
the host did not forego his own share.

"Town is the place, after all," he said. "(Help
yourself, Canby;—wait finish that)," and diving
down, he brought up tenderly a bottle which he
uncorked on a slanting stand. "Dear me! I
used to dine with a great man, and a good man,
no other than H.R.H. the sailor Dook, and I have
often and often seen him do the very thing that
I'm doing, with his own hands. Did it uncommon
well, too. I never saw so fine an eye and steady
a hand for decanting. "What about the match,
Still?" he continued, as the claret made its last
Æolian chant as it entered the decanter.

"Day after to-morrow," said Mr. Still, helping
himself. "To be on the green."

"Are those Wiltshire fellows any good?"

"They have one fellow who can bowl, I believe.
But Pitcher's coming to us from the depôt.
Not one of them will stand up a minute before
Pitcher."

"I wonder you'd play with such a set," said
Ross, with disgust. "They're all cads and
counter-jumpers. I suppose you know that?
Their captain's a sort of railway fellow, I
believe."

"Well, you know," said the major, "we must
take what we get. We can't go picking and
choosing, you know."

"Oh, just as you like," said Ross, helping
himself. "That's your concern, you know. I like
playing with gentlemen, just as a matter of taste.
"You play?" he said to Mr. Tillotson. "No, I
suppose not."

"No," said Mr. Tillotson, with excellent good
humour. "I have not played for a long time;
but I don't think it has interfered with my wrist.
I used to play with Lillywhite, and those men."
He then told them some details of the inner
life of that game which, as in every other craft,
are very interesting because informal. Then
they went up to the drawing-room.

The girl with the golden hair was, as usual,
away from the inhabited district of the drawing-
room. Mr. Tillotson saw her several times
"motion over" Ensign Ross to her side. But he
affected not to see. She came out presently, and
went to the window to settle some plants—no
one apparently heeding—and then Mr. Tillotson
went up to her. She welcomed him with a smile,
bright and glowing as her hair.

"You are wonderful," she said. "You are so
good tempered. You do not mind his rough
speeches. I saw you did not."

"Dear no," said Mr. Tillotson. "What was
there in that? I was all the time thinking of
what you had said of him. Poor fellow! He
has plenty to quarrel with besides me. I know
his character at this moment—honest, open,
impetuous, but chafing and fretting against the
world, which does not understand him—and,
perhaps, against fools who would advise him, and
who, he sees, will turn out by a sort of accident
to be right—and perhaps against straitened
means, which he sees may be his lot. He
suspects or dislikes me."

"Why should he?" said she, warmly.

"I don't know. And yet I seem to understand
him. He has been worried and soured by
troubles. You know him well, perhaps have his
confidence, and might hint to him that when I
go back I might help him in some way—(I know
some useful people)—at least, as far as a town
Manfred," he added, smiling, "or a City Werner
can do. This lawsuit, even——"

"Oh, how good! how generous!" she said.
"He is a sort of relation of ours, and we are all
interested for him, and afraid also. Let me thank
you for him. I shall speak to him. I have been
thinking of what you said last night," she went
on, "and it has given me a sort of strange
comfort to think there is some one who has troubles
a little like mine. Though indeed it has made me
ashamed to think of naming mine beside yours."

"You were not made for troubles, surely,"
said he, sadly. "You can know nothing of
sorrow, and it is too early——"

"Tillotson! Tillotson!" called out Mr. Tilney,
"just come here. Come over here! You know
I said I would show it to you. Still, look at this.
I suppose one of the most curious things you
could meet."

Still, however, did not come. Augusta had
said to him, "It is only an old letter of papa's."