many thoughts, and of all the vicissitudes of his life. He went towards it now in the commotion of feeling which was subsiding into calm, a calm which had something of fatigue in it; for reluctant as he was to enter into the question of age and the nearly approaching conclusion, the fact of age made him easily tired with everything, and with nothing more than excitement. He was fatigued with the strain he had been put to, and had fallen into a languid state which was not unpleasant; the condition in which we are specially disposed to be easily amused if any passive amusement comes in our way. So it happened that as he walked along the margin of the lake, with the water softly foaming over the pebbles at his feet, Mr. Musgrave’s ear was caught by a series of sharp little repetitions of sound, like a succession of small reports--one, two, three. He listened in the mild, easily-roused, and not very active curiosity of such a moment, and recognized with a smile the sound of pebbles skipping across the water; presently he saw the little missiles gleaming along from ripple to ripple, flung by a skilful but not very strong hand. The Squire did not even ask himself who it was, but went on quietly, doubting nothing. Suddenly turning round a corner upon the edge of a small bay, he saw a little figure between him and the shining water, making ducks and drakes with varying success. The Squire’s step was inaudible on the turf, and he paused in sympathy with the play. He himself had made ducks and drakes in the Penninghame water as long as he could recollect. He had taught his little boys to do it; he could not tell how it was that this suddenly came to his mind just now--though how it should do so with Randolph, a middle-aged, calculating parson, talking about family arrangements--Pah! but even this recollection did not affect him now as it did before. Never mind Randolph. This little fellow chose the stones with judgment, and really, for such a small creature, launched them well. The Squire felt half disposed to step forward and try his skill too. When one shot failed he was half-sorry, half-inclined to chuckle as over an antagonist; and when there came a great success, a succession of six or seven reports one after another as the flat pebble skimmed over fold after fold of the water, he could not help saying, “Bravo!” in generous applause; generous, for somehow or other he felt as if he were playing on the other side. This sensation aroused him; he had not been so self-forgetting for many a day. “Bravo!” he cried, with something like glee in his voice.