"I've got it!" said Constancy, sitting up with a broad smile of pleasure. "It's modern--it's democratic. It's life's fulness, roses, strawberries, sun, summer--got with some trouble, for the many. So there's a little dust. You have the best of everything--music, parties; but you go by the underground!" When Constancy was present, she always took the stage--or, rather, people gave it to her--she commanded attention. She was now at college, thinking, talking, making friends according to her wont, and though her literary ambitions were necessarily much in abeyance, she wrote, now and then, an article or short story, which had just the distinction that wins acceptance, and was not quite like every one else's. The youngest Miss Staunton was a college friend, and Constancy was intimate with her family, which consisted of two or three sisters, all busy with various forms of self-help and self-expression, and of the brother now present. The whole party lived harmoniously together, on a conjunction of small incomes, on terms of mutual independence, and, as Constancy epigrammatically put it, "went into society in the underground," and into very good society too, which is no doubt a modern and democratic development. "Don't let us collect material for magazine articles," said Violet Staunton; "but let us settle about the reading party. Cuthbert has heard of a jolly old-fashioned place on the moors up above Rilston, in Yorkshire, within reach of all kinds of fine scenery." "Rilston!" interposed Constancy. "We stayed once with Aunt Connie, at a place near there--Waynflete." "How odd!" said Violet. "It was from Mr Waynflete that Cuth heard of the place." "Guy Waynflete is a friend of mine," said Mr Staunton. "I stayed with him once at Ingleby. We came upon Moorhead in our walks, and I should think it might suit for the preparation of future double firsts and senior-wranglers." "Thank you, Mr Staunton," said Constancy, frankly rising to the bait. "I dare say you would expect to find us crocheting antimacassars!" A little more discussion followed as to ways and means, and as to the number of the party, which was to consist of Constancy and her sister, of the eldest and youngest Miss Stauntons, and of two other college students. "I should like to see Waynflete again," said Constancy; "it was a lovely old place--haunted, too. The family lost it to a villain called Maxwell, and the old lady who has it now bought it back again." "I never heard anything of the family history from Waynflete," said Cuthbert Staunton, "beyond the fact that the old place had been recovered. But I believe we are connected with some Yorkshire Maxwells. Do you know any particulars of the `villain,' Miss Vyner?" "You, descended from the hereditary foe, and friends with Guy Waynflete, without knowing it? How splendid!" said Constancy, sitting upright. "This is the story."