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the compliment. A Venetian who visited England when Henry VII. was on the throne, was astonished at the lack

charges brought by zealous Englishmen against Italy became more precise and less heinous. Atheism, infidelity, vicious conversation, ambitious of affection wherewith English and proud behaviour — these parents regarded their childare the sins which Harrison ren, and English husbands observed in the newly-returned their wives. In no class could Englishman. And presently he trace real human nature or the Italianate Briton, once a the passion of love. Thus are devil incarnate, was whittled the insults of untravelled down into a mere fop, a thing Englishmen avenged. Thus of frills and furbelows, of is a check given to overantics and gestures, of fan- hasty condemnation. As for tastic speech and affected man- the Italianate Englishman, he ners, not unlike the tourist of seemed a very real monster to to-day who comes back from three generations of men, and Paris with a flat-brimmed hat let it not be forgotten that, on his head and broken Eng- under whatever guise he preslish in his mouth. It is a ently appeared, he owed his strange chapter in the history beginning to John Tiptoft, of international relations, and Earl of Worcester, accomit seems not a little stranger plished scholar, munificent when we remember that the patron of learning, and the Italians were quick to return Butcher of England.

A MAN'S MAN.

BY IAN HAY, AUTHOR OF 'THE RIGHT STUFF.'

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proposer to come and second his own motion at any mo

ment.

To her entered suddenly Jno. Alex. Goble.

"Yon felly!" he intimated austerely.

"Mr Haliburton, do you mean, John?" inquired Miss Gaymer, hastily letting down her feet.

"Aye. Wull I loose him in here?"

as one might announce the arrival of a person to inspect the gas-meter.

Mr Haliburton, who was not the man to show embarrassment, whether he felt it or not, advanced easily into the room. Joan surveyed his straight back and square shoulders as he passed her, and the corners of her mouth twitched, ever little.

Then she looked at Hughie.

"Yes, please. No I It was her first meeting with

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him since his return home that morning. He had answered her note by another, saying that he would be in the library at five o'clock. There was no twitching about his mouth. It was closed like a steel trap; and he stood with his back to the wood fire which glowed in the grate-it was getting on in September, and cold out of the sun-with absolute stolidity. Joan saw at a glance that, whatever the difficulties of the position, her guardian's line of action was now staked out and his mind made up-one way or the other.

She dropped into an armchair.

"Now, you two," she remarked encouragingly, "get to work! I want to hear what each of you has got to say about my future. It will be quite exciting-like going to a palmist!"

The two men turned and regarded her in unfeigned surprise. They had not expected this. Haliburton began swiftly to calculate whether Joan's presence would be a help to him or not. But Hughie said at once

"You must leave us alone, All the woman in her-and she Joan, please! I can't possibly was all woman-answered to allow you to remain." the challenge contained in Hughie's dictatorial attitude. Besides, she was horribly curious.

Joan lay back in her chair and smiled up at him, frankly mutinous. She had never yet failed, when she so desired, to "manage" a man. Hughie was regarding her stonily; but two minutes, she calculated, would make him sufficiently pliable.

She was wrong. At the end of this period Hughie was still rigidly waiting for her to leave the room. Joan, a little surprised at his obstinacy, remarked

"If you are going to object to-to Mr Haliburton's suggestions, Hughie, I think I ought to hear what the objections are."

"Before you go," said Hughie in even tones, "I will tell you one thing—and that should be sufficient. It is this. There is not the slightest prospect of this-this engagement coming off. My reasons for saying so I am prepared to give to Mr Haliburton, and if he thinks proper he can communicate them to you afterwards. But I don't think he will. Now will you leave us, please?"

Joan was genuinely astonished. But she controlled herself. She was determined to see the matter out now.

She heaved a sad little sigh, and made certain shameless play with her eyes which she knew stirred poor Hughie to the point of desperation, and surveyed the result through drooping lashes with some satisfaction. Hughie's mouth was fast shut, and he was breathing through his nose; and Joan could see a little pulse beating in his right temple. (Both of them, for the moment, had forgotten the ardent suitor by the window.) She would win through in a moment now.

But, alas! she had forgotten a masculine weapon against which all the Votes for Women in the world will avail nothing, when it comes to a pinch.

Hughie suddenly relaxed his attitude, and strode across to the door, which he held open for her.

"At once, please!" he said in a voice which Joan had

never heard before, though many men had.

Without quite knowing why, Miss Gaymer rose meekly from her chair and walked out of the room. The door closed behind her.

When Joan found herself on the lawn again she gasped a little.

"Ooh!" she said breathlessly. "I-I feel just as if I'd been

II.

hit in the face by a big wave! This game is not turning out quite as you expected, Joey, my child: the man Hughie is one up! Still, I'll take it out

of him another time. But heavens!"-she was staring, like Red Riding-Hood on a historic occasion, at a recumbent figure in her canvas chair beneath the copper beech"who on earth is that in my chair? It's-it's-oh! Joey Gaymer, you've got hysterics! It's-it's-Uncle Jimmy! Uncle Jimmy! My UncleJimmy!"

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Next moment she was reposing comfortably, a distracted bundle of tears and laughter, in the arms of Jimmy Marrable. "A bit sudden-eh, young lady?" inquired that gentleman at last. "I ought to have written, I suppose. But I quite forgot you would all think I was dead. Never mind-I'm not!" He blew his nose resonantly to substantiate his statement.

Joan, satisfied at last that he was real, and greatly relieved to find that she was not suffering from hysterical delusions arising from Hughie's brutal treatment of her, inquired severely of the truant where he had been for the last five years.

Jimmy Marrable told her. It was a long story, and the shadow of the copper beech had perceptibly lengthened by the time the narrator had embarked at Zanzibar for the port of Leith. They had the garden to themselves, for the Leroys were out.

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had no time to explain. I was barely eighteen then."

"It was the old failing-the Marrable wandering tendency," replied her uncle. "I had kept it at bay quite easily for close on fifteen years, but it came back very hard and suddenly about that time." "Why?"

"Partly, I think, because the thing that had kept me at home all those years seemed to be slipping away from me."

“I wasn't!" declared Miss Gaymer stoutly. Then she reflected. "Do you mean

all those silly boys? Was it them?"

"It was," said Jimmy Marrable. "They not only put my nose out of joint but they bored me to tears."

"You were always worth the whole lot of them put together, dear," said Miss Gaymer affectionately.

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"I knew knew that,' replied Jimmy Marrable modestly, "but I wasn't quite sure if you did. I saw that for the next two or three years you would be healthily and innocently employed in making fools of young men, and so could well afford to do without your old wreck of an uncle. The serious part would not come until you grew up to be of a marriageable age. So I decided in the meanwhile to treat myself to just one last potter round the globe, and then, in a couple of years or so, come home and assume the onerous duties of chucker-out."

"Then why did you stay away so long?" demanded Miss Gaymer.

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