Thinking is certainly a bad habit—especially when your time belongs to somebody else and you are not being paid to think! Nevertheless, I sat there all the afternoon, puzzling my brain, 37 when my brain was not supposed to wake up and rub its eyes at all inside the Herald office. I was being paid to come there and write airy little nothings for the Herald's airy little readers, yet I added to my sin of indecision by absorbing time which wasn't mine. 37 "Of course the possession of these letters in a way connects you with greatness," grandfather would say once in a while, in a lenient, musing sort of way. "But I trust that you are not going to let this fly to your head. Anyway, as the family has always known, your Uncle James Christie didn't leave his letters and papers to his great-niece; he merely left them! True, she was very close to him in his last days and he had always loved and trusted her—" "But there's a difference between trusting a woman and trusting her with your desk keys!" Uncle Lancelot interrupted. "Uncle James ought to have known a thing or two about women by that time!" "Yet we must realize that the value of the possession 38 was considerable, even in those days," grandfather argued gently. "We must not blame his great-niece for what she did. James Mackenzie Christie had caught the whole fashionable world on the tip of his camel's-hair brush and pinioned it to canvases which were destined to get double-starred notices in guide-books for many a year to come, and the correspondence of kings and queens, lords and ladies made a mighty appeal to the young girl's mind." 38 "Then, that's a sure sign they'd be popular once again," said Uncle Lancelot. "Of course there's a degree of family pride to be considered, but that shouldn't make much difference. The Christies have always had pride to spare—now's the time to let some of it slide!" Thus, after hours of time and miles of circling tentatively around the battlements of Colmere Abbey—the beautiful old place which had been the home of Lady Frances Webb—I was called back with a stern suddenness to my place in the Herald office. 39 39 "Can you think of anything else?" the poet's voice begged humbly. "I'm trying to match up just plain 'Ty' this time—but I'm dry." I turned to him forgivingly. I welcomed any diversion.
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