next week.  Stapleton seems to disapprove of Sir Henry's
attentions, perhaps out of a fear of loneliness.  It would be
the height of selfishness if he were to stand in the way of her
making so brilliant a marriage, though any love affair will
certainly make my job of keeping an eye on Sir Henry more onerous.
The other day - Thursday - Mortimer lunched with us, very
enthusiastic about a prehistoric skull he has excavated at a
barrow at Long Down.  The Stapletons came in later, and the
Doctor showed us all the spot in the yew alley where Sir
Charles died.  It is a long dismal walk, the yew alley, and I
tried to imagine the old man standing by the moor-gate and being
terrified by a spectral hound, black, silent & monstrous, or a
sheepdog of the moor.
I have also met Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, some four miles
south of us - an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired &
choleric, who spends a fortune in litigation, first in favour of
