XVI. IN WHICH PAN PIPES TO THE STARS 239

XVII. IN WHICH FEAR WALKS IN A STORM 256

XVIII. IN WHICH WE HEAR ONCE MORE OF A SANDALWOOD
FAN 274

XIX. IN WHICH CHRISTMAS COMES TO CROSSROADS 284

XX. IN WHICH A DRESDEN-CHINA SHEPHERDESS AND A
COUNTRY MOUSE MEET ON COMMON GROUND 298

XXI. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL HEARS A CALL 314

XXII. IN WHICH ANNE WEIGHS THE PEOPLE OF TWO
WORLDS 333

XXIII. IN WHICH RICHARD RIDES ALONE 347

XXIV. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL FINDS LOVE IN A
GARDEN 361

Mistress Anne

CHAPTER I

_In Which Things Are Said of Diogenes and of a Lady With a Lantern._

THE second day of the New Year came on Saturday. The holiday atmosphere
had thus been extended over the week-end. The Christmas wreaths still
hung in the windows, and there had been an added day of feasting.
Holidays always brought people from town who ate with sharp appetites.

It was mostly men who came, men who fished and men who hunted. In the
long low house by the river one found good meals and good beds, warm
fires in winter and a wide porch in summer. There were few luxuries, but
it pleased certain wise Old Gentlemen to take their sport simply, and to
take pride in the simplicity. They considered the magnificence of modern
camps and clubs vulgar, and as savoring somewhat of riches newly
acquired; and they experienced an almost aesthetic satisfaction in the
contrast between the rough cleanliness of certain little lodges along the
Chesapeake and its tributary tide-water streams, and the elegance of the
Charles Street mansions which they had, for the moment, left behind.

It was these Old Gentlemen who, in khaki and tweed, each in its proper
season, came to Peter Bower's, and ate the food which Peter's wife cooked
for them. They went out in the morning fresh and radiant, and returned at
night, tired but still radiant, to sit by the fire or on the porch, and,
in jovial content, to tell of the delights of earlier days and of what
sport had been before the invasion of the Philistines.

They knew much of gastronomic lore, these Old Gentlemen, and they liked
to talk of things to eat. But they spoke of other things, and now and
then they fell into soft silences when a sunset was upon them or a night
of stars.