library, and devoted himself to his favourite study. Three years later he married, or rather his aunt, Mrs. Fordyce, married him. That lady, who was the wife of a neighbouring squire, came over and, as she said, took him in hand.

“This cannot go on, Herbert,” she said; “it is plainly your duty to marry.”

“I have never thought of marrying, aunt.”

“I daresay not, Herbert, but that is no reason why you shouldn’t marry. You don’t intend, I suppose, that this place, after being in the hands of our family for hundreds of years, is to be sold to strangers at your death. It is clearly your duty to marry and have children.”

“But I don’t know anyone to marry.”

“I will find you a wife, Herbert. I know half a dozen nice girls, any one of whom would suit you. You want a thoroughly good, sensible wife, and then, perhaps, there would be some chance of your becoming like other people.”

“I don’t want to become like other people, I only want to be let alone.”

“Well, you see that is out of the question, Herbert. You shirk all your duties as a large land-owner; but this duty, at least, you cannot shirk. Let me see, to-day is Monday; on Wednesday our gig shall be over here at half-past twelve, and you shall come over and lunch with me. I will have Miss Hendon there; she is in all respects suitable for you. She is fairly pretty, and very bright and domesticated, with plenty of common sense. She won’t have any money; for although her father’s estate is a nice one, she has four or five brothers, and I don’t suppose Mr. Hendon lays by a penny of his income. However, that matters very little. Now you must rouse yourself for a bit. This is an important business, you know, and has to be done. After it is over you will find it a great comfort, and your wife will take all sorts of little worries off your hand. Of course if you don’t like Mary Hendon when you see her, I will find somebody else.”

Herbert Beveridge resigned himself quietly, and became almost passive in this matter of his own marriage. He liked Mary Hendon when he had got over the shyness and discomfort of the first visit, and three months later they were married. He then went back to his library again, and his wife took the management of the estate and house into her capable hands. During her lifetime Herbert Beveridge emerged to a certain extent from his shell. He became really fond of her, and occasionally accompanied her on her drives, went sometimes into society, and was generally considered to be improving fast.

Ten years after marriage she died, and her husband fell back into his old ways. His life, however, was no longer quite solitary, for she had left him a boy eight years of age. He had been christened Horace, which was a sort of compromise. Mr. Beveridge had wished that he should have the name of some Greek worthy—his favourites being either Themistocles or Aristides. His mother had called in Mrs. Fordyce to her assistance, and the two ladies together had succeeded in carrying their point. Mrs. Fordyce had urged that it would be a misfortune for the boy to bear either of these names.

“He will have to go to school, Herbert, of course, and the boys would make his life a burden to him if he had either of the names you mention. I know what boys are; we have plenty of them in our family. If he were Aristides he would get the nickname of Tidy, which would be hideous. The other name is worse still; they would probably shorten it into Cockles, and I am sure you would not want the boy to be spoken of as Cockles Beveridge.”

“I hate common names,” Mr. Beveridge said, “such as Jack, Bob, and Bill.”

“Well, I think they are quite good enough for ordinary life, Herbert, but if you must have something classical why not take the name of Horace? One of Mary’s brothers is Horace, you know, and he would no doubt take it as a compliment if you gave the boy that name.”

And so it was fixed for Horace. As soon as the child was old enough to go out without a nurse, Mr. Beveridge appointed one of his Greek servants to accompany him, in order that the child should pick up a knowledge of Greek; while he himself interested himself so far in him as to set aside his books and have him into the library for an hour a day, when he always talked to him in Greek. Thus at his mother’s death the boy was able to talk the language as fluently as English. In other respects he showed no signs whatever of taking after his father’s tastes. He was a sturdy boy, and evinced even greater antipathy than usual to learning the alphabet, and was never so happy as when he could persuade Marco to take him down to the beach to play with the fisher children. At his mother’s death he was carried off by Mrs. Fordyce, and spent the next six months with her and in the houses of his mother’s brothers, where there were children about his own age. At the end of that time a sort of family council was held, and Mrs. Fordyce went over to Seaport to see her nephew.

“What were you thinking about doing with the boy, Herbert?”

“The boy?” he asked vaguely, being engaged on a paper throwing new light on the Greek particles when she entered.

“Naturally, Herbert, the boy, your boy; it is high time he went to school.”

“I was thinking the other day about getting a tutor for him.”

“Getting fiddlesticks!” Mrs. Fordyce said sharply; “the boy wants companionship. What do you suppose he would become, moping about this big house alone? He wants to play, if he is ever to grow up an active healthy man. No harm has been done yet, for dear Mary kept the house bright, and had the sense to let him pass most of his time in the open air, and not to want him always at her apron-string. If when he gets to the age of twenty he develops a taste for Greek—which Heaven forbid!—or for Chinese, or for any other heathen and out-of-the-way study, it will be quite time enough for him to take it up. The Beveridges have always been men of action. It is all very well, Herbert, to have one great scholar in the family; we all admit that it is a great credit to us; but two of them would ruin it. Happily I believe there is no record of a great scholar producing an equally great son. At any rate I do hope the boy will have a fair chance of growing into an active energetic man, and taking his place in the county.”

“I have no wish it should be otherwise, aunt,” Herbert Beveridge said. “I quite acknowledge that in some respects it would be better if I had not devoted myself so entirely to study, though my work has not been without fruit, I hope, for it is acknowledged that my book on the use of the digamma threw an entirely new light upon the subject. Still I cannot expect, nor do I wish, that Horace should follow in my footsteps. Indeed, I trust, that when I have finished my work, there will be little for a fresh labourer to glean in that direction. At any rate he is far too young to develop a bent in any direction whatever, and I think therefore that your proposal is a good one.”

“Then in that case, Herbert, I think you cannot do better than send him with Horace Hendon’s two boys to school. One is about his own age and one is a little older. The elder boy has been there a year, and his father is well satisfied with the school.”

“Very well, aunt. If you will ask Horace to make arrangements for the boy to go with his sons I am quite content it should be so.”

So Horace Beveridge went, a week later, by coach with his cousins to a school at Exeter, some forty miles from Seaport, and there remained until he was fourteen. He passed his holidays at home, never seeing his father until dinnertime, after which he spent two hours with him, a period of the day to which the boy always looked