‘About a hundred and fifty of her bosom friends, I suppose,’ retorted John Treverton, ‘all simpering in the highest style of art, and trying to look unconscious of the photographer’s iron collar gripping them by the scruff of the neck. No, Laura, I am not going to let the sun make a correct map of my wrinkles in order that I may join the simperers in Lady Barker’s photograph album, that fashionable refuge for the destitute in brains, after a dull dinner.’ ‘Do you mean to say that you have never been photographed?’ asked Edward. ‘No, I do not. I had my photograph taken by Nadar a good many years ago, when I was young and frivolous.’ ‘Oh, Jack, how I should like to have a picture of what you were years ago!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘What has become of all the photographs?’ ‘Heaven knows,’ answered John carelessly; ‘given to Tom, Dick, and Harry--scattered to the four winds. I have not kept one of them.’ ‘Nadar,’ repeated Edward musingly; ‘you are talking of the man in Paris, I suppose?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You know Paris well?’ ‘Every Englishman who has spent a fortnight there would say as much as that,’ answered John Treverton carelessly. ‘I know my way from the Louvre to the Palais Royal, and I know two or three famous restaurants, where a man may get an excellent dinner if he likes to pay for it with its weight in gold.’ Nothing more was said upon the subject of photographs. Edward Clare left Hazlehurst next day for London. He was not going to be long away, he told his father and mother, but he wanted to see a manager who had made overtures to him for a legitimate historical drama, in blank verse. ‘He was struck by a dramatic fragment I wrote for one of the magazines,’ said Edward, ‘and he has taken it into his head that I could write as good a play as the “Hunchback” or the “Lady of Lyons.”’ ‘Oh, do go and see him, Ted,’ cried Celia, with enthusiasm. ‘It would be awfully jolly if you were to write a play. We should all have to go up to town to see the first performance.’ ‘Should we?’ interrupted the Vicar, without looking up from his _John Bull_, ‘and pray who would find the money for our railway fare, and our hotel bill?’ ‘Why, you, of course,’ cried Celia. ‘That would be a mere bagatelle. If Edward were to burst upon the world as a successful dramatic author he would be on the high road to fortune, and we could all afford a little extravagance. But who is your manager, Ted, and who are the actors who are to act in your play?’ inquired Celia, anxious for details. ‘I shall say nothing about that till my play is written and accepted,’ answered Edward. ‘The whole affair is in the clouds at present.’ Celia gave a short impatient sigh. So many of her brother’s literary schemes had begun and ended in the clouds. ‘I suppose I am to take care of your den while you are away,’ she said, presently, ‘and dust your books and papers?’