Lady Arthur was in brilliant spirits at dinner that evening. "I suppose you are going to live on love," she said.
"I am going to work for my living," said George.
"Very right," she said; "but, although I got better last year, I can't live for ever, and when I'm gone Alice will have the Garscube estates: I have always intended it."
"Madam," said George, "do you not know that the great lexicographer has said in one of his admirable works, 'Let no man suffer his felicity to depend upon the death of his aunt'?"
It is said that whenever a Liberal ministry comes in Mr. Eildon will be offered the governorship of one of the colonies. Lady Arthur may yet live to be astonished by his "career," and at least she is not likely to regret her dying letter.
THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS."
THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH.
"What is that black mass yonder, far up the beach, just at the edge of the breakers?"
The fisherman to whom we put the question drew in his squid-line, hand over hand, without turning his head, having given the same answer for half a dozen years to summer tourists: "Wreck. Steamer. Creole."