entre, lighted by
candles. The food was simple, the wine was good.

"Marengo chicken," said Mrs. Graves as a dish was handed round. "That's
one of Jane's historical allusions. If you don't know why it is called
Marengo, Jane will rejoice to enlighten you." After the meal she begged
him to smoke. "I like it," said Mrs. Graves; "I have even smoked myself
in seclusion, but now I dare not--it would be all over the parish
to-morrow."

After dinner they went back to the drawing-room, and Miss Merry turned
out to be quite a good pianist, playing some soft old music at the end
of the gently lighted room. Mrs. Graves went off early. "You had better
stop and smoke here," she said to Howard. "There's a library where you
can work and smoke to-morrow; and now good night, and let me say how I
delight to have you here--I really can't say how much!"

Howard sat alone in the drawing-room. He had an almost painful faculty
of minute observation, and the storage of new impressions was a real
strain to him. To-day it seemed that they had poured in upon him in a
cataract, and he felt dangerously wakeful; why had he been such a fool
as to have missed this beautiful house, and this home atmosphere of
affection? He could not say. A stupid persistence in his own plans, he
supposed. Yet this had been waiting for him, a home such as he had
never owned. He thought with an almost terrified disgust of his rooms
at Beaufort, as the logs burned whisperingly in the grate, and the
smoke of his cigarette rose on the air. Was it not this that he had
been needing all along? At last he rose, put out the candles, and made
his way to the big panelled bedroom which had been given him. He lay
long awake, wondering, in a luxurious repose, listening to the whisper
of the breeze in the shrubberies, and the faint murmur of the water in
the full-fed stream.

IV

THE POOL

Very early in the morning Howard woke to hear the faint twittering of
the birds begin in bush and ivy. It was at first just a fitful, drowsy
chirp, a call "are you there? are you there?" until, when all the
sparrows were in full cry, a thrush struck boldly in, like a solo
marching out above a humming accompaniment of strings. That was a
delicious hour, when the mind, still unsated of sleep, played softly
with happy, homelike thoughts. He slept again, but the sweet mood
lasted; his breakfast was served to him in solitude in a little
panelled parlour off the Hall; and in the fresh Apri