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UST draw your chair round a little; I know there's a draught on that side. I did intend at one time to have it cured in some way, but it does not much matter now. I'll have a screen put round your corner Mine is comfortable enough."

This was said to me one winter evening by my cousin John Elder, as we sat on each side of the fire in his particularly cosy dining-room, where the table, with its lamp, flowers, and dessert, had been drawn up to an easy distance from our hands. John was sipping port, and I was cracking nuts, for which, in spite of my years, I have an abiding affection; and behind my chair was the door from which might, but did not, come the draught John was speaking of.

John is an elderly gentleman, a bachelor, very well off, very comfortable, and very popular, but still rather mysteriously a bachelor, because he has always liked and been liked by women. I am an elderly lady, widow, and John and I have been friends all our lives. The reason why I was sitting beside John's dining-room fire was that I had come to pay him a visit, and, as there were no other guests in the house, it was much more sensible for me to stay and talk with him while he enjoyed his after-dinner ease than to go away by myself into the drawing-room.

"There is no draught," I said, "none at present, I am sure. But there may be when the wind is north, and a screen would make all safe."

"Yes," he answered musingly, as he looked at the wine he had just poured out, "a screen would do, but I did think once of altering the door, making really a good job of it. I planned that with other alterations."