I was, and lingered in the hall, giving the servants
directions to wipe the snow off the tyres of her machine before she lent
an attentive ear to my welcoming remarks.

"I couldn't make your man understand me at the station," she said at
last, when her mind was at rest about her bicycle; "I asked him how far
it was, and what the roads were like, and he only smiled. Is he German?
But of course he is--how odd that he didn't understand. You speak
English very well,--very well indeed, do you know." By this time we were
in the library, and she stood on the hearth-rug warming her back while I
poured her out some tea.

"What a quaint room," she remarked, looking round, "and the hall is so
curious too. Very old, isn't it? There's a lot of copy here."

The Man of Wrath, who had been in the hall on her arrival and had come
in with us, began to look about on the carpet. "Copy" he inquired,
"Where's copy?"

"Oh--material, you know, for a book. I'm just jotting down what strikes
me in your country, and when I have time shall throw it into book form."
She spoke very loud, as English people always do to foreigners.

"My dear," I said breathlessly to Irais, when I had got into her room
and shut the door and Minora was safely in hers, "what do you think--she
writes books!"

"What--the bicycling girl?"

"Yes--Minora--imagine it!"

We stood and looked at each other with awestruck faces.

"How dreadful!" murmured Irais. "I never met a young girl who did that
before."

"She says this place is full of copy." "Full of what?"

"That's what you make books with."

"Oh, my dear, this is worse than I expected! A strange girl is always
a bore among good friends, but one can generally manage her. But a girl
who writes books--why, it isn't respectable! And you can't snub that
sort of people; they're unsnubbable."

"Oh, but we'll try!" I cried, with such heartiness that we both laughed.

The hall and the library struck Minora most; indeed, she lingered so
long after dinner in the hall, which is cold, that the Man of Wrath put
on his fur coat by way of a gentle hint. His hints are always gentle.

She wanted to hear the whole story about the chapel and the nuns and
Gustavus Adolphus, and pulling out a fat note-book began to take down
what I said. I at once relapsed into silence.

"Well?" she said.

"That's all."

"Oh, but you've only just begun."

"It doesn't go any further. Won't you come into the library?"

In the library she