Cannes, though the season was not far from its close, was as yet by no means empty. As I drove to my hotel the streets were alive with carriages, white skirts, and the shining of red sunshades. I was soon asked to participate in a number of forthcoming dissipations, the first of these being a tea party given by Philip Green at his villa, "La Foret," which was close to my own doors. The company comprised a charming and interesting group of French ex-royalties, and a live German king, who looked like a commercial traveler. This party remains in my mind as though it were a vignette on the last page of a diary, the principal entries in which related to a land of which Catherine Cornaro was the last royal ruler, and whose last democracy was democracy as understood by the doges. On the whole, my expedition to Cyprus, which, together with its two sequels, had occupied about four months, did for me more than I had ever seriously expected. It was at once a stimulus and a rest. I returned to England in May, pleased with the prospect of enjoying a couple of months of London, after which, in Scotland and elsewhere, I hoped to resume my study of political and social problems, and restate them in forms which politicians might find useful. This labor was, however, often interrupted by the pressure of family business, which would call me back for a week or ten days to Devonshire. When the more urgent details were for the time settled, as they were toward the end of the year, I went once more to Cannes, and subsequently to the Cap d'Antibes, being one of a small party who were to stay at the same hotels and lunch and dine in private. No such arrangement could possibly have prospered better. I had, as I knew I should have, much time to myself, and among my luggage was a boxload of statistical Blue Books, which formed my companions in hours of industrious solitude. We made a number of expeditions to old towns in the hills, one of our frequent companions being Father Bernard Osborne, the Catholic nephew by marriage of Mr. Froude the historian, and son of Rev. Lord Sidney Godolphus Osborne, then the most stalwart choregus of ultraevangelical Protestantism. Another frequent companion was Miss Charlotte Dempster, famous as a writer of novels--especially of one, _Blue Roses_, the scene of which was, oddly enough, Cockington. Miss Dempster, whose mere presence was a monument to her own celebrity, was much given to the cultivation of royalties, and which was to bring to her villa the presence of a reigning sovereign. So important did she deem the occasion that, before the potentate was due, she got together the ladies whom she had honored with an invitation to meet him, and instructed them as to how, in his august presence, they should demean themselves. The instructions had been given, and had been followed by an expectant hush, when sounds in the hall were heard like those of the Second Advent. "Now, ladies," said Miss Dempster, solemnly, "rise." The ladies rose