are cold
and tired after your journey. Things always look dull when one is
tired. Come into the library, all of you! There's a glorious fire, and
you shall have tea at once." She slid her hand into her eldest
daughter's arm, looking with fond admiration at the fair, delicately cut
profile. "You have had a happy time in town this last week--since we
left?"

Rowena turned her tall head, and looked down upon her mother with the
air of a young goddess, offended, yet resolutely self-restrained. Mrs
Saxon was a medium-sized woman, but she looked small beside the tall
slenderness of the young daughter who held herself so loftily erect.
"Mother!" cried Rowena, in a deep tone of remonstrance, "it's the
Vincents' dance to-morrow! I was looking forward to it more than
anything else. Lots of grown-up people are going--it would have been
almost like coming out. I never thought you would have brought me away
from town the very day before _that_. You knew how I should feel--"

"Darling, I'm sorry, more sorry than I can say, but it was necessary.
As things are, it is better that you should not go. I'll explain--we
will explain. You shall hear all about it later, but first we must have
tea. I think we shall all feel better after tea."

Mrs Saxon looked from one to another of her children with the same
strained, unnatural smile which had greeted them a few minutes before,
and Gurth and Dreda, falling behind the rest, rolled expressive eyes and
whispered low forebodings.

"Something up! I thought as much. What can it be?"

"Don't know. Something horrid, evidently. In the holidays, too. What
a sell!"

Miss Bruce had considerately disappeared, and the parents and children
were left alone in the big bare library, with its rows of fusty, out-of-
date books in early Victorian mahogany bookcases, its three long windows
draped in crimson red curtains, its Indian carpet worn by the tramp of
many feet. A cheerful fire blazed in the grate, however, and the tea
equipage set out on the long table was sufficiently tempting to raise
the spirits of the travellers. It was a real old-fashioned sit-down
tea, where one was not expected to balance a cup and plate on one's knee
and yet refrain from spilling tea or scattering crumbs on the carpet.
Girls and boys arranged themselves in their usual places with sighs of
relief and satisfaction, and, disdaining bread-and-butter, helped
themselves energetically to the richest cake on the