Mr. Mainwaring rose to his feet. He was an apologetic little gentleman, verging on sixty, with a few wisps of grey hair brushed carefully across his bald head. At present these were hanging down upon the wrong side, giving their owner a mildly leonine appearance. A kindly, shy, impulsive man, Abel Mainwaring was invariably mute and ill at ease beneath the eye of his wife and daughter. Their patrician calm oppressed him; and his genial expansive nature only blossomed in the presence of his erratic but affectionate son. "Tea?" he exclaimed with mild alacrity--"Who said tea?" "Abel," announced Lady Adela in tones which definitely vetoed any further conversational openings originating in tea, "I think it only right to tell you that a visitor may arrive at any moment; and your present appearance, to put it mildly, is hardly that of the master of a large household." "My dear, I fly!" said Mr. Mainwaring hurriedly, and disappeared. At the same moment there was a tinkle in the back premises. "There goes the front-door bell," said Sylvia. "I never heard the carriage. Can it be Connie already?" "A caller, probably," sighed her mother. "How tiresome people are. See who it is, Milroy, and then bring tea." The butler, who had entered from the dining-room, crossed the hall to the curtained alcove which screened the front door. "Hardly a caller on an afternoon like this," said Sylvia, shivering delicately. "It is raining in sheets." "My experience," replied Lady Adela peevishly, "has always been that when one’s neighbours have made up their minds to be thoroughly annoying, no weather will stop them." Simultaneously with this truthful but gloomy reflection Lady Adela composed her fine features into an hospitable smile of welcome and rose to her feet. "Misterilands!" announced Milroy, drawing back the curtain of the outer hall. Lady Adela, still smiling, rolled an enquiring eye in the direction of her daughter. "New curate!" hissed Sylvia. Through the curtained archway advanced a short, sturdy, spectacled young man, dumbly resisting Mr. Milroy’s gracious efforts to relieve him of his hat and stick. Lady Adela extended her hand. "How do you do, Mr. Highlands?" she enquired, as the ruffled Milroy, shaken off like an importunate limpet, disappeared into the dining-room. "My name," replied the visitor apologetically, "is Rylands--not Highlands." "How stupid of me!" said Lady Adela condescendingly. "But my butler is a most inarticulate person, and in any case we give him the benefit of the doubt where H’s are concerned." "It’s of no consequence," Mr. Rylands assured her. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" He picked up his walking-stick, which had fallen upon the polished floor with a shattering crash, and continued breathlessly:--