"Sorry," muttered Geoffrey, who was a plump youth, but good-looking in a fair florid style. He greatly resembled his father at the same age; and though to hear Jemmie talk about his youth now was to conjure up a half-heroic figure of mythical prowess and virtue, it is probable that the son equally resembled in character his father at the same age. Muriel, who was fifteen, did not resemble either of her parents much, although in figure, if the figure of a girl of fifteen may be granted the name, she seemed likely to take after her father. She was very fair, round-faced and blue-eyed, reputed clever, an admirable athlete, and immensely popular at school. Her mother never felt really at ease with Muriel, though she never could satisfactorily explain to herself why this should be so; it seemed absurd to allow herself to bow embarrassed before that pitiless judgment of youth; but bow she did, and the consciousness of her position often made her irritable. Not that any display of irritation affected Muriel, who would merely stare at her mother, slightly knitting the fair brows above those eyes of porcelain blue. "I'm beginning to be afraid that Muriel may be difficult," Mary confided in her husband that evening, when she came to bid him good night. "Oh no, I don't think so. Several of my family have been very clever, but it never led to anything unpleasant. They were clever, but always very womanly women. I think she's a nice straightforward, clean-minded English girl. Oh no, I don't believe she'll be difficult." "I find her very hard to understand," Mary complained. "All the time I have a feeling that she is building up a wall between herself and me." "Know what it is?" Jemmie asked. "Know what's the matter with you? You're growing old." "Jemmie, what a horrible thing to tell me." "Never mind, old lady. It's got to be. We're both growing old. I tell you I realize it more and more when I'm playing golf. Good night, my dear." He offered himself to her salute without rising from the chair in which he was smoking his final cigar before a light autumnal fire in the library--the Badminton Library, as Muriel called it, for that collection of authoritative treatises on sport, together with some bound volumes of _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_, _Handley Cross_, and a few novels by writers like Frank Smedley, constituted her father's literary environment.