am very glad to be here to welcome you home."

Peter, foolishly embarrassed, took the hand she offered with such
gracious composure, and blushed all over his thin, tanned face.

"I--I should hardly have known you," he stammered.

"Really?" said Sarah.

"Won't you," said Peter, still looking at her, "join us on the
terrace?"

"The people aren't calling for _me_" said Sarah.

"But it might amuse you," said Peter, deferentially.

He put up his eyeglass--but though Sarah's red lip quivered, she did
not laugh.

"It's rather jolly, really," he said. "They've got banners, and flags,
and processions, and things. Won't you come?"

"Well--I will," said Sarah. She accepted his help in descending the
step with the air of a princess. "But they'll be so disappointed to
see me instead of your mother."

"Disappointed to see _you_!" said Peter, stupefied.

She stepped forth, laughing, and Peter followed her closely. John
Crewys stood aside to let them pass. Lady Mary, half amazed and half
amused, realized suddenly that her son had forgotten he came back to
fetch her. She hesitated on the threshold. More cheers and confused
shouting greeted Peter's reappearance on the balcony. He turned and
waved to his mother, and the canon came hurrying over the grass.

"The people are shouting for Lady Mary; they want Lady Mary," he
cried.

John Crewys looked at her with a smile, and held out his hand, and she
stepped over the sill, and went away across the terrace garden with
him.

The doctor turned his face from the crowd, and went back alone into
the empty room.

"Who _doesn't_ want Lady Mary?" he said to himself, forlornly.

CHAPTER XIV

Peter stood on his own front door steps, on the shady side of the
house, in the fresh air of the early morning. The unnecessary eyeglass
twinkled on his breast as he looked forth upon the goodliness and
beauty of his inheritance. The ever-encroaching green of summer had
not yet overpowered the white wealth of flowering spring; for the
season was a late one, and the month of June still young.

The apple-trees were yet in blossom, and the snowy orchards were
scattered over the hillsides between patches of golden gorse. The
lilacs, white and purple, were in flower, amid scarlet rhododendrons
and branching pink and yellow tree-azaleas. The weeping barberry
showered gold dust upon the road.

On the lower side of the drive, the rolling grass slopes were
thriftily left for hay; a floweri