oble soul there stirred a first
passing terror of what the war might do with him, if he were
_forced_ to feel it--to let it in. He saw it as a veiled Presence at
the Door--and struggled with it blindly.

He was just turning back to the house, when he saw a figure
approaching in the distance which he recognized. It was that of a
man, once a farmer of his, and a decent fellow--oh, that he
confessed!--with whom he had had a long quarrel over a miserable sum
of money, claimed by the tenant when he left his farm, and disputed
by the landlord.

The dispute had gone on for two years. The Squire's law-costs had
long since swallowed up the original money in dispute.

Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in
connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion--had
asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with
the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.

Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer. Grateful
astonishment! 'Of course I am ready to meet you, sir--I always have
been. I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your
letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it
signed at your door to-night. I trust this trouble is now over. It
has been a great grief to me.'

And now there was the man bringing the letter. One worry done with!
How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its
exacting owner hadn't thrown up her work--so preposterously!

The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor's way
through a shrubbery, and returned to his library. Fires had begun,
and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room. The return
to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many
delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a
moment of pleasure to the Squire. Here was shelter, here was
escape--both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from
the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and
incompetent diplomats. But if there was any season when the long
crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these
autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural
'homing' instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to
spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.

His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes
and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry an