"What's kept you so late ?" His spectacles fell forward as he spoke, and the old man shut them in his hand, peering at his grandson through the shadows of the room.

He was sitting by a huge fire, an "Edinburgh Review" open on his knee.

Lamp and fire-light showed a finely-carried head, with a high wave of snowy hair thrown back, a long face delicately sharp in the lines, and an attitude instinct with the alertness of an unimpaired bodily vigour.
"The birds were scarce, and we followed them a good way," said Aldous, as he came up to the fire.

"Rickman kept me on the farm, too, a good while, with interminable screeds about the things he wants done for him." "Oh, there is no end to Rickman," said Lord Maxwell, good-humouredly.
"He pays his rent for the amusement of getting it back again.

Landowning will soon be the most disinterested form of philanthropy known to mankind.