f that
evening without reluctance and regret.

It was a glorious afternoon when I set out, and the prairie was fresh and
green after a gentle rain that promised an early sprouting of the seed,
but as I neared the Manor the faces of those I met were anxious and
somber. They looked like men who after mature consideration had undertaken
an unpleasant duty, and I could not help a fancy that some of them wished
themselves well out of it. Saddled horses, buggies, and wagons stood in
front of the house, and further mounted figures were approaching across
the prairie, but the men who had already arrived seemed more inclined to
wait for them than to enter the building, until its owner stood in the
doorway. He looked at them with a little grim smile.

"It is not the first time you have been here, and this difference appears
a little unusual," he said. "Won't you come in?"

I went in with the others, and was not pleased when Lyle placed me beside
himself in a prominent position. Indeed, after a desultory conversation
during which no one seemed quite at ease it was a relief to hear the last
arrivals dismount and then to take our places at the long table upon
which Lyle had deposited plans of the settlement. He with a few others of
what was evidently the executive committee sat near me, and the rest
stretched back toward the doorway. As we waited a few moments in a state
of tense expectation the details of the scene impressed themselves on my
memory.

There were heads and skins, as well as Eastern weapons--trophies the
Colonel had brought home from several of England's smaller wars--on the
cedar wainscot. The prairie was flooded with sunlight outside, and an
invigorating breeze that flowed in through the open windows brought with
it the smell of the grass and stirred the heavy curtains. Carrington sat
at the head of the table in a great oak chair which Grace once told me had
come from a house that was famous in English history. There was an
escutcheon which some of the settlers derided on the paneling above it,
and the sunlight beating in through a window fell on him. He sat very
erect, a lean, commanding figure with expressionless face and drooping
white moustache, close to the great English pattern hearth which in winter
assisted the much more useful stove, while both his manner and the
surroundings suggested some scene in the feudal ages rather than an
incident on the newly-opened prairie.

"You asked me to meet you, and, as