Blank consternation followed this announcement. This person, even though he was Mary Avon’s sole surviving relative, was quite intolerable to us. East Wind we had called him in secret, on the few occasions on which he had darkened our doors. And just as we were making up our happy family party—with the Laird, and Mary, and Angus Sutherland—to sail away to the far Hebrides, here was this insufferable creature—with his raucous voice, his washed-out eyes, his pink face, his uneasy manner, and general groom or butler-like appearance—thrusting himself on us! "Well, you know, Mary," says her hostess—entirely concealing her dismay in her anxious politeness—"we shall almost certainly be home by the day after to-morrow, if we get any wind at all. So you had better telegraph to your uncle to come on to Castle Osprey, and to wait for you if you are not there; we cannot be much longer than that. And Angus Sutherland will be there; he will keep him company until we arrive." So that was done, and we went on board again—one of us meanwhile vowing to himself that ere ever Mr. Frederick Smethurst set sail with us on board the _White Dove_, a rifle-bullet through her hull would send that gallant vessel to the lobsters. Now what do you think our Mary Avon set to work to do—all during this beautiful summer evening, as we sat on deck and eyed curiously the other craft in the bay, or watched the firs grow dark against the silver-yellow twilight? We could not at first make out what she was driving at. Her occupation in the world, so far as she had any—beyond being the pleasantest of companions and the faithfullest of friends—was the painting of landscapes in oil, not the construction of Frankenstein monsters. But here she begins by declaring to us that there is one type of character that has never been described by any satirist, or dramatist, or fictionist—a common type, too, though only becoming pronounced in rare instances. It is the moral Tartuffe, she declares—the person who is through and through a hypocrite, not to cloak evil doings, but only that his eager love of approbation may be gratified. Look now how this creature of diseased vanity, of plausible manners, of pretentious humbug, rises out of the smoke like the figure summoned by a wizard’s wand! As she gives us little touches here and there of the ways of this professor of bonhomie—this bundle of affectations—we begin to prefer the most diabolical villainy that any thousand of the really wicked Tartuffes could have committed. He grows and grows. His scraps of learning, as long as those more ignorant than himself are his audience; his mock humility anxious for praise; his parade of generous and sententious sentiment; his pretence—pretence—pretence—all arising from no evil machinations whatever, but from a morbid and restless craving for esteem. Hence, horrible shadow! Let us put out the candles and get to bed.