ortunity; so you had better take to the boat at once. But in any case
I shouldn't have kept you out of it for long, since I am due in the hay-
fields in a few days."

The newcomer rubbed his hands with glee, but turning to me, said in a
friendly voice:

"Neighbour, both you and friend Dick are lucky, and will have a good time
to-day, as indeed I shall too. But you had better both come in with me
at once and get something to eat, lest you should forget your dinner in
your amusement. I suppose you came into the Guest House after I had gone
to bed last night?"

I nodded, not caring to enter into a long explanation which would have
led to nothing, and which in truth by this time I should have begun to
doubt myself. And we all three turned toward the door of the Guest
House.

CHAPTER III: THE GUEST HOUSE AND BREAKFAST THEREIN

I lingered a little behind the others to have a stare at this house,
which, as I have told you, stood on the site of my old dwelling.

It was a longish building with its gable ends turned away from the road,
and long traceried windows coming rather low down set in the wall that
faced us. It was very handsomely built of red brick with a lead roof;
and high up above the windows there ran a frieze of figure subjects in
baked clay, very well executed, and designed with a force and directness
which I had never noticed in modern work before. The subjects I
recognised at once, and indeed was very particularly familiar with them.

However, all this I took in in a minute; for we were presently within
doors, and standing in a hall with a floor of marble mosaic and an open
timber roof. There were no windows on the side opposite to the river,
but arches below leading into chambers, one of which showed a glimpse of
a garden beyond, and above them a long space of wall gaily painted (in
fresco, I thought) with similar subjects to those of the frieze outside;
everything about the place was handsome and generously solid as to
material; and though it was not very large (somewhat smaller than Crosby
Hall perhaps), one felt in it that exhilarating sense of space and
freedom which satisfactory architecture always gives to an unanxious man
who is in the habit of using his eyes.

In this pleasant place, which of course I knew to be the hall of the
Guest House, three young women were flitting to and fro. As they were
the first of the sex I had seen on this eventful morning, I naturally
looked at them