"Did you though?" said Miss Chesney with a somewhat indifferent interest,--"He's a queer sort of man to my thinking; rather a cross between the ticket-collector and custom-house officer combined, you know! I never see him but what I feel I must start on a journey directly--railways seem to be written all over him. I tell him so. I say 'Pa, if you didn't carry railway-tracks in your face you'd be better looking.' And you found him humorous, did you?" Laughing at the novel and free way in which this young person criticised her parent, Lucio protested that he did. "Well I don't,"--confessed Miss Chesney--"But that may be because I've heard all his stories over and over again, and I've read most of them in books besides,--so they're not much account to me. He tells some of them to the Prince of Wales whenever he can get a chance,--but he don't try them off on me any more. He's a real clever man too; he's made his pile quicker than most. And you're quite right about his vitality,--my!--his laugh takes you into the middle of next week!" Her bright eyes flashed merrily as she took a comprehensive survey of our amused faces. "Think I'm irreverent, don't you?" she went on--"But you know Pa's not a 'stage parent' all dressed out in lovely white hair and benedictions,--he's just an accommodating railway-track, and he wouldn't like to be reverenced. Do sit down, won't you?"--then turning her pretty head coquettishly towards her host--"Make them sit down, Lord Elton,--I hate to see men standing. The superior sex, you know! Besides you're so tall," she added, glancing with unconcealed admiration at Lucio's handsome face and figure, "that it's like peering up an apple-tree at the moon to look at you!" Lucio laughed heartily, and seated himself near her--I followed his example; the old Earl still kept his position, legs a-straddle, on the hearth-rug, and beamed benevolence upon us all. Certainly Diana Chesney was a captivating creature; one of those surface-clever American women who distinctly divert men's minds without in the least rousing their passions. "So you're the famous Mr Tempest?" she said, surveying me critically--"Why, it's simply splendid for you isn't it? I always say it's no use having a heap of money unless you're young,--if you're old, you only want it to fill your doctor's pockets while he tries to mend your poor tuckered-out constitution. I once knew an old lady who was left a legacy of a hundred thousand pounds when she was ninety-five. Poor old dear, she cried over it. She just had sense enough to understand what a good time she couldn't have. She lived in bed, and her only luxury was a halfpenny bun dipped in milk for her tea. It was all she cared for." "A hundred thousand pounds would go a long way in buns!" I said smiling.