Here peace reigned. Stiffy, one of whose chief joys in life was the study of the British Railway System, from Automatic Couplings to Newspaper Specials, was sitting up in bed with an old _Bradshaw_, laboriously ascertaining by how many routes and with how few changes the ordinary railway maniac might travel from Merthyr-Tydvil to Stockton-on-Tees. At the other end of the room the ever-occupied Anthony, with his night-shirt for a surplice and a stocking for a stole, was standing by an open grave (the hearthrug) rehearsing the opening passages of the Service for the Burial of the Dead,--an exercise to which, in common with various other ecclesiastical offices, he was much addicted. Daphne, having kissed Stiffy and gravely given her verdict upon a knotty point which was exercising that scrupulous youth's mind, namely, whether it was permissible by the rules of the game to include in his schedule of connections a train which ran on Thursdays Only, handed him his weekly dole of clean linen and turned to the youngest member of the family. "Good-morning, Tony dear," she said cheerfully. The celebrant, who, true artist that he was, disliked unnecessary abruptness in his transitions, stopped short in the Ninetieth Psalm. "Dearly Beloved Brethren," he gabbled in an apologetic undertone, "I am called for a moment from the side of this the last resting-place of our lamented sister"--apparently it was a lady friend he was interring--"by other business; but I shall be back in a minute." Then, unwinding the stocking from about his neck-- "Daphne, those new vests are beastly scratchy. Must I wear them?" "I know, old man," responded his sister sympathetically. "But they've been bought and paid for--horribly dear, too!--so you must lump it. Try wearing them inside out for a time. That takes the edge off a bit." And thus, with sage counsel and practical suggestion (together with a brief whistle to Mr Dawks, who was moistening his internal clay at the water-jug), our young Minerva passed on to the sleeping-place of her beloved Ally. Rather to her surprise, Mr Aloysius Vereker was awake and out of bed. The reason was plain. Before him upon the dressing-table lay a pot of shaving-soap of a widely advertised brand, a new shaving-brush, a sixpenny bottle of bay rum, and a lather dish of red indiarubber,--youthful extravagances to which the hardened shaver of twenty years' standing, who smears himself with ordinary Brown Windsor out of the soap-dish and wipes his razor on a piece of newspaper or the window-curtain, looks back with mingled amusement and regret. In his hand gleamed a new razor. "Careful!" he gasped through a sea of lather. "Don't shake the room, kid!" Daphne sat cautiously down upon the bed, and surveyed the operator with unfeigned pride and enthusiasm. She clasped her hands. "Ally, how splendid! When did you begin doing it?" Ally, weathering a hairless and slippery corner, replied--