st
African jungles of which Mr. Jardine told us."

They were to see Mr. Jardine later. At present he was on a round of
visiting at the houses of the great. The names of the people who had
elected to do honour to Paul Jardine would have been a list of pretty
well the most illustrious persons in the kingdom. When Lady Agatha had
suggested to him that he might give a week to Hazels before the summer
was done, he had been eager about it, had even suggested dropping some
of his other engagements. But that she would not hear of. She seemed to
take an odd pride and pleasure in the way he had conquered the world
best worth conquering.

"What!" she had said. "Drop Sir Richard Greville and Lord Overbury! Not
for worlds! You may find it dull. Sir Richard lives the life of a
hermit, and you won't get anything fit to eat at Lord Overbury's. He
never knows what he's eating, and his cook has long given up trying to
do credit to herself. I believe that only for his dining-out he'd be
starved. Even as it is, he's been known to take mustard with his soup
and red-currant jelly with his cheese. Still--he's Lord Overbury!"

They led a very quiet life at Hazels, seeing hardly anyone. Lady Agatha
had declared that she was going to make up for her rackety life in town,
as well as to prepare for the winter. She had looked as fresh as a rose
through all the racketing, and when she talked about the need for rest
she had smiled.

As a matter of fact, her energy was too overflowing to permit of her
resting as other folk rested. A change of occupation was about as much
as one could hope for. And now she was restless as she had not been
before, for, energetic as she had always been, she had never driven
others. Indeed, many people had found absolute restfulness in her
Ladyship's big, wholesome presence.

"The life in town has only stimulated me, Mary," she confessed; "just
stimulated me and excited my brain. I must work it off somehow. Let us
begin at the novel to-morrow."

They began at the novel. Lady Agatha dictated it, and Mary took it down
in short-hand. They worked out of doors. Mary had her seat under the
boughs of a splendid chestnut tree on a little green lawn. The lawn was
at the side of the house, not over-looked, enclosed on three sides by a
splendid yew hedge. The dogs would lie at Mary's feet. There were Roy
the St. Bernard, and Brian the bull-dog, a toy Pomeranian, and a little
Chow. The dogs always stayed at Hazels. "If I took