es. Ivy and creepers of all sorts
clung to its stones and crept up its walls, long tendrils of vivid
green. The drive swept round a beautifully kept lawn and vanished
through a stone gateway leading into the stable-yard. It was only a
pretence at a garden in front. Uncle John always held that the open
space which lay at the back of the house and on to which the
drawing-room windows opened was the real thing. There, was more green
grass, which centuries of care and weeding and rolling had transformed
into a veritable soft velvet carpet of exquisite colour that stretched
out and down till it met the wood of tall trees that fringed the garden.
Flowers were encouraged to grow wild under those trees; in spring it was
a paradise of wild daffodils and tulips. That was Aunt Janet's
arrangement; Uncle John liked his gardens to be orderly. He was
responsible for the straight, tidy flower-beds, for the rose gardens,
for the lavender clumps that grew down at the foot of the vegetable
garden. For lavender is not really an ornamental flower and Uncle John
only tolerated it because of Aunt Janet's scent-sachets.

Beautiful and old and infinitely peaceful, the sight and colour of it
could bring back childhood and a sense of safety to Joan, a sense that
Uncle John's figure and face--dear and familiar as they were--had been
quite unable to do. London, her life with Gilbert, the rack and tumult
of her thoughts during the past six months appeared almost as a dream
when seen against this dear old background.

Aunt Janet was waiting their arrival in the hall, and Joan, clambering
down out of the trap, ran straight into those outstretched arms.

"Oh, Aunt Janet, it is good to be back," she gasped. Then she drew away
a little to take in the tall, trim figure dressed all in black save for
a touch of white at neck and wrists; the face stern and narrow, lit by a
pair of very dark eyes, the firm, thin-cut mouth, the dark hair, showing
grey in places, brushed back so smooth and straight and wound in little
plaits round and round the neat head. "You are just the same as ever,"
Joan said. "Oh, Aunt Janet, it is good to get back."

The dark eyes, softened for the moment by something like tears, smiled
at her. "Of course I am just the same, child. What did you expect? And
you?"

"Oh, I am I," Joan answered; her laughter sounded unreal even to
herself.

"You have been ill," contradicted Miss Rutherford, "it is plain to see
all over your face. Tha