t me and not up into the sky, they were
almost hidden by their lids. Her left arm lay carelessly along the arm
of the chair, and, her sleeve being loose and open, I could see half a
dozen inches of warm pink arm. I just looked at her.

"Done?" she said.

"Not quite." I have said before, and I say again, that girls of this
type ought not to be allowed to raise their eyebrows and smile faintly
at the same moment. It amounts to a technical assault. I fancy she
saw me set my teeth, for the next moment she put up her left hand and
bent the broad blue rim over her face.

"Early closing day," she said. I contemplated her ankles in silence.
After a minute:

"Well?" said my companion from behind the brim.

"I hate it when the blinds are down," said I, "but--"

"But what?"

"Happily, they are only short blinds. In other words, just as the
ostrich, when pursued, is said to thrust its head into the sand,
believing--"

"And now please can I be shown over the house?"

I glanced at the order-to-view which she had handed me. It referred to
The Grange, which stood in its own grounds about half a mile away. Its
lodge gates were rather like ours. The same mistake had been made
before.

"The agent at Bettshanger gave me that to-day, and I motored over this
afternoon. The car's outside. I was walking up the drive--how pretty
it all is!--when I saw you asleep here. I suppose I ought to have gone
up to the house really, but it looked so nice and cool here that I came
and sat down instead and waited for you to wake."

"I'm so glad you did."

"Why?"

"Well, you see, they're rather a queer lot up there at the house--might
have said you couldn't see over, or something."

She opened her big eyes.

"But I've got an order."

"That's the worst of it. They'll take orders from no one. Once they'd
caught sight of it, you would have been blindfolded and led back to the
village by a circuitous route."

"Nonsense!"

"It's a fact. But I'll show you round, all right. Anything I can tell
you about the place before we move?"

She regarded me suspiciously. Then:

"Is there a billiard-room?" she said.

"Certainly. And a table complete with three balls, one of latest
models--slate bed, pneumatic cushions. Be careful of the top one; it
bust the other day. The butler had pumped it up too tight."

"Servants' hall?"

"Every time. All the domestic offices are noble."

"Telephone?"

"Of course. In case of fir