dear. On the whole, your father was
remarkably patient."

Grace laughed, a rather strained laugh, as Osborn's angry voice rose from
behind a shrubbery.

"He isn't patient now, and I'm afraid Jackson is paying for my fault.
However, I really think I was patient, too. To talk about people keeping
their places is ridiculous; in fact, it's piffle! Father's notions are
horribly out of date. One wonders he doesn't know."

"Things change. Perhaps we don't quite realize this when we are getting
old. But you mustn't argue with your father. He doesn't like it, and when
he's annoyed everybody suffers."

"It's true; but how illogical!" Grace remarked, and mused while she
looked dreamily across the grass.

She was romantic and generous, and had learned something about social
economy at the famous school; in fact, Osborn would have been startled
had he suspected how much she knew. Nevertheless, she was young; her
studies were half digested, and her theories crude. She had come home
with a vague notion of playing the part of Lady Bountiful and putting
things right, but had got a jar soon after she began. Her father's idea
of justice was elementary: he resented her meddling, and was sometimes
tyrannical. When it was obvious that he had taken an improper line he
blamed his agent; but perhaps the worst was he seldom knew when he was
wrong. Then the agent's main object was to extort as much money from the
tenants as possible.

Grace did not see what she could do, although she felt that something
ought to be done. She had a raw, undisciplined enthusiasm, and imagined
that she was somehow responsible. Yet when she tried to use some
influence her father got savage and she felt hurt. Well, she must try to
be patient and tactful. While she meditated, Mrs. Osborn got up, and they
went back to the house.

CHAPTER II

THE OTTER HOUNDS

Grace's tweed dress was wet and rather muddy when she stood with Gerald
on a gravel bank at the head of a pool, where the beck from the tarn
joined a larger stream that flowed through a neighboring dale. There had
been some rain and the water was stained a warm claret-color by the peat.
Bright sunshine pierced the tossing alder branches, and the rapid close
by sparkled between belts of moving shade. Large white dogs with black
and yellow spots swam uncertainly about the pool and searched the bank; a
group of men stood in the rapid, while another group watched the tail of
the pool. Somewhere bet