d the wild flowers, the rooks returning to roost in the trees at
sunset, the horses playing in the paddocks, the cows dawdling back
from their pastures, all sweet country scents and cheerful country
sounds she became alive to and began to love. There would be trouble
enough in Beth herself at times, wherever she was; it was hard that
she could not have been kept in some such paradise always, to ease the
burden of her being.

One morning her mother told her that Uncle James was extremely
displeased with her because he had seen her pelting the swans.

"He didn't see me pelting the swans," Beth asseverated. "I was feeding
them with crusts. And how did he see me, any way? He wasn't there."

"He sees everything that's going on," Mrs. Caldwell assured her.

"He's only pretending," Beth argued, "or else he must be God."

But she kept her eyes about her the next time she was in the grounds,
and at last she discovered him, sitting in the little window of his
dressing-room with a book before him, and completely blocking the
aperture. She had never noticed him there before, because the panes
were small and bright, and the shine on them made it difficult to see
through them from below. After this discovery she always felt that his
eyes were upon her wherever she went within range of that window. Not
that that would have deterred her had she wanted to do anything
particularly; but even a child feels it intolerable to be spied upon;
and as for a spy! Beth scorned the creature.

That day at luncheon Uncle James made an announcement.

"Lady Benyon is going to honour us with a visit," he began in his most
impressive manner. There is no snob so inveterate as your snob of good
birth; and Uncle James said "Lady" as if it were a privilege just to
pronounce the word. "She will arrive this afternoon at a quarter to
four."

"But you will be practising," Beth exclaimed.

"The rites of hospitality must be observed," he condescended to inform
her.

"Lady Benyon is my mother, Beth," Aunt Grace Mary put in irrelevantly.

"I know," Beth answered. "Your papa was a baronet; Uncle James loves
baronets; that was why he married you." Having thus disposed of Aunt
Grace Mary, Beth turned to the other end of the table, and resumed:
"But you went on practising when _we_ arrived, Uncle James."

Uncle James gazed at her blandly, then looked at his sister with an
agreeable smile. "Lady Benyon will probably like to see the children.
You do not dres