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 head clerk, had gone up to The Abbey to welcome them home and talk a little business.

"I doubt if they'll be able to pull through," he said to Anthony on his return to the office. "The grounds are all going to rack and ruin, to say nothing about the outbuildings and the farm. Even to keep it up as it is will take two thousand a year; and it doesn't seem to me that, after paying the interest on the mortgage, he'll have as much as that left altogether."

"What does he say himself?" asked Anthony. "Does he grasp it?"

Oh, after me the deluge!' seems to be his idea," answered old Johnson. "Reckons he isn't going to live for more than two years, and may just as well live there. Talks of shutting up most of the rooms and eking out existence on the produce of the kitchen garden," he laughed.

"And Lady Coomber?" asked Anthony.

"Oh, well, he's fortunate there," answered Johnson. "Give her a blackbird to sing to her and a few flowers to look after and you haven't got to worry about her. Don't see how they're going to manage about the boy."

"He's in the army, isn't he?" said Anthony.

"In the Guards," answered Johnson. "They must be mad. Of course they've any amount of