"I wonder," Hewitt has once or twice observed, "whether, after all, it would not have paid the Russian authorities better on the whole if I had never investigated Mirsky's little note-factory. The Dixon torpedo was worth a good many twenty-rouble notes." _Illustrated Interviews._ XXXIV.--SIR FRANCIS AND LADY JEUNE. [Illustration: ARLINGTON MANOR _From a Photo by Elliott & Fry._] It would be difficult indeed to single out a more pleasant method of passing a couple of days than with Sir Francis Jeune, Lady Jeune, and their children. It was in the early days of spring that I had this privilege, when, for a brief time, Sir Francis was free from the trials and tribulations of the law, and, together with his family, was enjoying the rest afforded by a short sojourn at his charming house in Berkshire. About a couple of miles from Newbury--rich in reminiscence of the troublesome times associated with the Cromwellian _régime_--is Arlington Manor. It is a substantially-built country mansion--built of a peculiar species of Bath stone--and no matter from which of its four sides you view the outlook, it is "as fair as fair can be." From one side you can here and there catch sight of a streak of blue sky through a forest of fir trees; from another is a grand stretch of meadows, from which you may often hear the voice of young Francis Christian Seaforth Jeune--Sir Francis's son, who had for his godmother the Princess Christian, and is proud of the fact that he was entered for Harrow before he was four days old--shouting out "Well hit!" at a particularly good drive of the ball by the butler, who happens to be a capital cricketer. Perhaps, however, the view from the veranda is the finest. The lawn is immediately before you; a little series of valleys and hills rise and fall until all is lost in the blue line of hills miles away. It is an ideal spot, and one which must be peculiarly interesting to Sir Francis, owing to its being in the centre of a piece of country closely allied with a period of history in which he is so deeply read. Around the house golf links have been recently laid out. Sir Francis said that I should have been at Arlington and seen a match between Sir Evelyn Wood, Mr. Lockwood, and himself. "The General was the best player," he added, "or, perhaps, I should say, the least bad."