o Scaife,
who laughed derisively, as he answered--

"He couldn't, even if he tried."

Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife
and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by
a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on
Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert,
tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth,
and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris
Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it warm chestnut; and she had
a dimple.

After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood
up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of
the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had
spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow
and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned
skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and
all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He
loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been
insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.

"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to
you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the
Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at
Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it
is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job--head over
heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a
master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers
everything, ay--everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad.
Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye,
_one_ eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak--by Jove! how I longed to
reach that peak!--but the other eye was on a _crevasse_ at my feet. Had
I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of
that