quiet, how much more quiet than usual, was the dear, familiar,
peaceful scene! All this week, thanks in a great measure to the
prolonged Bank Holiday, Witanbury had been bathed in a sabbatical calm.

Oddly enough, this had not been as pleasant as it ought to have been. In
fact, it had been rather unpleasant to find nearly all the shops shut
day after day, and it had become really awkward and annoying not to be
able to get money as one required it. At this very moment Rose was out
in the town, trying to cash a cheque, for they were quite out of petty
cash.

During the last three days Major Guthrie, who so seldom allowed more
than a day and a half to slip by without coming to the Trellis House,
had not called, neither had he written. Mrs. Otway was surprised, and
rather annoyed with herself, to find how much she missed him. She
realised that it was the more unreasonable of her, as at first, say all
last Wednesday, she had shrunk from the thought of seeing him, the one
person among her acquaintances, with the insignificant exception of
young Jervis Blake, who had believed in the possibility of an
Anglo-German conflict. But when the whole of that long day, the first
day of war, had gone by, and the next day also, without bringing with it
even the note which, during his infrequent absences, she had grown
accustomed to receive from Major Guthrie, she felt hurt and injured.

Major Guthrie was one of those rather inarticulate Englishmen who can
express themselves better in writing than in speech. When he and Mrs.
Otway were together, she could always, and generally did, out-talk him;
but often, after some discussion of theirs, he would go home and write
her quite a good letter. And then, after reading it, and perhaps smiling
over it a little, she would tear it up and put the pieces in the
waste-paper basket.

Yes, her rather odd, unconventional friendship with Major Guthrie was a
pleasant feature of her placid, agreeably busy life, and it was strange
that he had neither come, nor written and explained what kept him away.

And while Mrs. Otway sat there, waiting she knew not quite for what, old
Anna sat knitting in her kitchen on the other side of the hall, also
restlessly longing for something, anything, to happen, which would give
her news of what was really going on in the Fatherland. All her heart,
during these last three days, had been with Minna and Willi in far-off
Berlin.

A few moments ago a picture paper had bee