This might have been designed for a compliment. The incensed lady was not to be appeased. “You may swear,” she said; “but not in my company. This last year is responsible for more than one change to a coarseness of sentiment in you; though, being the impressionable child you are, I do not wonder.” She turned with an acid smile to a little table hard by. “Here,” she said, “is the latest intelligence of a country neighbour of yours that you once studied to take your cue from.” “You mean Tuke, of course. What about him?” “Why, only that his hoyden hath presented him with an heir to his profligacy;”--and she read out from a current copy of the _Lady’s Magazine_ the following announcement: “‘October 29. The lady of Sir Robt. Linne, Bart., of a son.’” “I congratulate them with all my heart,” said Blythewood fervently. Miss Angela looked at him with a stare of infinite scorn. “You were present at the wedding, I think?” said she. “You know I was.” “And you made quite an ingenious little speech to the May-day bride and her Jack-in-the-green, or clown--which was it? and I think you got tipsy, which was the best compliment you could have paid her.” “I dare say--I dare say; and--well, what then?” “What then, sir? Why, only that I think Sir Robert Linne should have kept his wife’s name out of an advertisement.” “Pooh! She takes her husband’s status; and she is a noble wench, by George, and will never bring him to shame.” “Or he, her, of course,” said Miss Angela--“and, Davy, ’tis time you put on your pinafore and went to play in the nursery.” And here ends the story--so far as it relates to the personages of this history--of the wonderful ruby that went by the name of the Lake of Wine. And here--or there, set in a leafy swale of the lonely Hampshire downs--stood until somewhat recently the ruins of that fallen house that superstition must still be peopling with spectres. They are gone now, the ruins. When the historian last saw them, a profound silence reigned within the broken walls; a riot of “devil’s-rope” and ground-elder filled the deep hollows of the courts; the ivy stems were grown ancient; and flitting about the green melancholy, a brimstone butterfly was blown aloft like a flake of the destroying fire that the spirit of romance had breathed into life again. And now a model farm, rising from the wreck, has disciplined the wild fields to a very pretty behaviour, and the ghosts are fled before the terror of the Psychical Society. THE END. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. The following misspellings (assumed to be dialects or drunken slurs) in dialogue have been preserved: [Chapter XI] “is to my knowledge a _scholard_ and an angler” [Chapter XIII] “or d’ye prefer _somethig_ i’ the psalmody fashion” “It’s cur-curdled the milk o’ human _kideness_ in me” [Chapter XXXIX] “where ha’ you been, you _inhospitalable_ scamp” “_Understad_?--_understad_, you conceited peddler?”