g fern. Under the blue June sky strewn with light
clouds, it stood for a peaceful, pleasant life, if rather a dull one,
and she could not help wondering whether her friend would really be
happier in a house of her own in Melbury Park, which, if painted in
somewhat exaggeratedly dark colours by Cicely's father, had not struck
her, when she had seen it from the railway, as a place in which any one
could possibly live of choice. Perhaps Walter had over-persuaded her.
She would know very soon now, for Muriel told her everything.

CHAPTER VI

A GOOD LONG TALK

Mrs. Graham--she was the Honourable Mrs. Graham, a daughter of the
breeder of Jove II. and other famous shorthorns--came out of the door
leading to the stableyard as Cicely drove up. She had been feeding young
turkeys, and wore a shortish skirt of brown tweed, thick boots and a
green Tyrolean hat, and was followed by three dogs--a retriever, a
dachshund, and one that might have been anything. She was tall and
spare, with a firm-set, healthy face, and people sometimes said that she
ought to have been a man. But she was quite happy as a woman, looking
after her poultry and her garden out of doors, and her dogs and her
household within. She had hardly moved from Mountfield since her
marriage thirty years before, and the only fly in the ointment of
content in which she had embalmed herself was that she would have to
leave it when Jim married. But she greeted Cicely, who was expected to
supplant her, with bright cordiality, and lifted up a loud voice to
summon a groom to lead off Kitty to the stable.

"My dear," she said; "such a nuisance as this wedding is you never knew.
It's as much as I can do to keep the birds and the animals fed, and how
_I_ shall look in heliotrope and an aigrette the Lord only knows. But I
suppose nobody will look at me, and Muriel will be a picture. Have you
heard that Walter is going to take her to live at Melbury Park? It seems
a funny place to go to live in, doesn't it? But I suppose they won't
mind as long as they are together. I never saw such a pair of
love-birds."

"Walter wrote to father about it this morning," said Cicely, "and he is
coming down this afternoon. Father is furious with him."

"Well, I'm sure I don't know why," said Mrs. Graham equably. "I
shouldn't care to live in Melbury Park myself, and I don't suppose Mr.
Clinton would. But nobody asks him to. If _they_ want to, it's their own
affair. I'm all for letting pe