omed their children on the threshold of their
country home, but a chill seemed to settle on the young people's spirits
as they entered the great square hall, which looked so colourless and
dreary. As a rule, The Meads was inhabited during the summer months
alone, and the children were accustomed to see it alight with sunshine,
with doors and windows thrown wide open to show vistas of flower gardens
and soft green lawns. In such weather, a house was apt to be regarded
merely as a place to sleep in, but now that it would be necessary to
spend a great part of the day indoors, it was regarded more critically,
and found far from attractive.

The Meads was one of those square, uncompromisingly ugly white houses
which are so often to be found in rural England, and which were built at
that architecturally unhappy period when old traditions had been cast
aside and the modern craze for art was as yet undeveloped. There were
plenty of rooms in the house, lofty and spacious enough, but as to
outline just so many boxes, with four straight walls, and never a niche
or an alcove to break the severity of line. The hall was another
square, and the staircase ascended straightly to the first landing,
where a monstrosity of a stained-glass window lighted the long corridors
beyond.

The furniture was of the same calibre as the house, for, The Meads
having been regarded more as a convenient dumping-ground for the
children in the summer holidays than as a formal residence, everything
that was shabby, injured, or out of date had been weeded from the
beautiful town mansion and drafted down to fill up the big square rooms.
Mr Saxon had a shooting-box in Scotland in which he was wont to spend
the autumn months, Mrs Saxon had a passion for travelling, and could
not understand the joy of spending every summer in the same house. The
Meads was large, healthy, and convenient, so that while the children
were young it had filled a real need, but there was no denying that,
regarded as a winter residence, it bore a somewhat chilling aspect.
Gurth looked round the hall with eyes very wide open and nose screwed up
in eloquent disapproval.

"I say! don't it look different, just, without the sun? Regular old
grim hole of a place, ain't it? Like an institution, or a hospital, or
something of the kind--not a bit like home--"

"Oh, Gurth, don't," cried his mother quickly, while her forehead
corrugated with lines as of actual physical pain. "Dear, you