"I suppose you mean Mr. Glynne, the gentleman who is giving the lectures. He is not more often at my house than he is at other people's. He is a young man of good family, well-bred and highly cultured. I went to school with his mother."
"Whose nonsensical idea was it having these lectures? What good can they do?"
Miss Lorraine thought it vain to argue that question with her uncle.
"Aldyth enjoys them," she said; "she is very fond of poetry."
"More's the pity," returned the old man. "I don't approve of stuffing a girl's head with poetry and rubbish! There's Byron, for instance. Now what good can it do a girl to read Byron, I should like to know?"
Miss Lorraine was silent. She thought it probable that Byron was the only poet with whose writings her uncle was acquainted; but she did not dare to hint that he was perhaps hardly competent to judge of the value of poetry.
"No," he added; "I object to those lectures. They will do her no good. Tell her so from me; tell her that I wish her to give them up."
"Uncle!" His niece looked blankly at him. She could hardly believe that he was in earnest.
"I mean it," he said; "I wish her to give them up. Guy does not care for them; he does not attend them, and I would rather she did not."
"But Aldyth cares very much for them," said her aunt. "You cannot think what a disappointment it would be to her."