"As regularly as on board ship," said the Captain. "I know the customs of the manor of old." "You have never favoured me with a long visit, Conrad," remarked Miss Skipwith reproachfully. "My life has been too busy for making long visits anywhere, my dear aunt." They took their places at the small square table, and Miss Skipwith said grace. Antony Doddery was in attendance, clad in rusty black, and looking as like a butler as a man who cleaned windows, scrubbed floors, and hewed wood could be fairly expected to look. He removed the cover of a modest dish of fish with a grand air, and performed all the services of the table with as much dignity as if he had never been anything less than a butler. He poured out a glass of ale for the Captain and a glass of water for his mistress. Miss Skipwith seemed relieved when Violet said she preferred water to ale, and did not particularly care about wine. "I used to drink wine at home very often, just because it was put in my glass, but I like water quite as well," said Vixen. After the fish there came a small joint of lamb, and a couple of dishes of vegetables; then a small custard pudding, and some cheese cut up in very minute pieces in a glass dish, some raw garden-stuff which Doddery called salad, and three of last year's pears in an old Derby dessert-dish. The dinner could hardly have been smaller, but it was eminently genteel. The conversation was entirely between Captain Winstanley and his aunt. Vixen sat and listened wonderingly, save at odd times, when her thoughts strayed back to the old life which she had done with for ever. "You still continue your literary labours, I suppose, aunt," said the Captain. "They are the chief object of my existence. When I abandon them I shall have done with life," replied Miss Skipwith gravely. "But you have not yet published your book." "No; I hope when I do that even you will hear of it." "I have no doubt it will make a sensation." "If it does not I have lived and laboured in vain. But my book may make a sensation, and yet fall far short of the result which I have toiled and hoped for." "And that is----" "The establishment of a universal religion." "That is a large idea!"