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 excuse of any sort or kind for the blasphemies of the half-penny evening enemy. On the other hand, he was the impious member of a family otherwise united in piety—a goat among sheep, a wanderer, a ne'er-do-weel, and a chronic grief to good gray hairs.

How he came by the money for Arran Downs—which was purchased in a good season, when the head of sheep ran very nearly into six figures—was as great a mystery in the old country as in the new. Yet in London they told a little story, which rather lent itself to deduction, where one happened to know how little the old Earl had spent on himself, and how much he must be worth.

It was said that Mr. Greville had dropped from the clouds into his father's town house one morning in time for prayers, but clad in Californian rags, and such boots that even the Earl could not permit him to kneel down before the servants. He had been two years away, and in all that time had written not at all. But it was said he related his