penly as if he were
Willard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openly
from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from
the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all
unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no
afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours
later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's
snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen
unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly
important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate.

"What did you bring me in here for?"

"Didn't you know I was?"

"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way
through his grounds."

"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds
so--common."

"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I
hate the sight of it."

"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged
into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the
house, take my hand and shut your eyes."

"That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes."
But he followed her.

"The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you know, in the fairy tale:

"The Red Etin of Ireland,
He lived in Ballygan.
He stole King Malcolm's daughter,
The pride of fair Scotlan'.
'Tis said there's one predestinate
To be his mortal foe----

Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil,
look!"

Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background of
winter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of the
Colonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting rays
of the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted them
across the drifted lawn.

In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seeming
always to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice for
comfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snow
lay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and
spruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under the
crown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago,
before the Colonel came. And between woods and house, erasing all trace
of tortuous landscape gardening, flower-