fe. There were lions couchant guarding the entrances. The
walls on that side showed mostly blank, uninteresting windows. With an
odd pride the great houses showed only their duller aspects to the
world.

All the living-rooms except one looked on the other side; and what a
difference! There was a great stretch of emerald-green turf such as one
would never look to see in London; to be sure, gardeners had been
watering and mowing and rolling it for over a century. In the turf were
many flower-beds, and here and there were forest trees which had been
there when the district was fields. Country birds came and built there
year after year. You might hear the thrush begin about January. And in
the spring it was a wilderness of sweet hyacinths and daffodils, lilac
and may. The rooms were spacious and splendid within the big
cream-coloured house; and the General used to say that in the early
morning, when the smoke had cleared away, it was possible from the upper
windows to see as far as the Surrey hills. However, that was something
which nobody but himself had tested.

In the house love and friendliness and good-will reigned supreme. The
General had insisted on engaging his own servants, much to the disgust
of the Dowager, who had several _proteges_ of her own practically
engaged. When the General had outwitted Lady Drummond on this occasion
by a flank movement, he was very gleeful in his confidential moments
alone with Nelly.

"She wanted to put in her spies and satellites, did she, Nelly, my girl?
Pretty stories of us they'd have carried to her Ladyship. The only
womanly thing your aunt has, my girl, is an invincible curiosity. She'd
like to know what we had for lunch and dinner, who came to see us, and
what clothes we wore. I'm glad you wouldn't have that mantua-maker of
hers. Cannot my girl have her frocks made where she likes? I'll tell you
what, Nelly: your aunt is a presumptuous, meddling, overbearing,
impertinent woman--that she is."

"Why don't you tell her to leave us alone, papa?"

But the General, whose courage had never been doubted during all the
years of his strenuous life, had very little bravery when it came to a
question of telling hard truths to a woman, and that woman the Dowager.

"We must remember, after all, Nelly," he would say then, "that she is
your Uncle Gerald's widow. Poor Gerald! what a dear fellow he was! No
matter what we say between ourselves, we can't quarrel with Gerald's
widow."

And