e Cotton, and I like home
pretty well, and I love Pendridny--and--I like Ravensham."

"His lordship is going to Ravensham to-day on his way up, I heard say."

"Oh! then he'll see great-granny. William----"

"Here's Miss Wallace."

From the doorway a lady with a broad pale patient face said:

"Come, Ann."

"All right! Hallo, Simmons!"

The entering butler replied:

"Hallo, Miss Ann!"

"I've got to go."

"I'm sure we're very sorry."

"Yes."

The door banged faintly, and in the great room rose the busy silence of
those minutes which precede repasts. Suddenly the four men by the
breakfast fable stood back. Lord Valleys had come in.

He approached slowly, reading a blue paper, with his level grey eyes
divided by a little uncharacteristic frown. He had a tanned yet ruddy,
decisively shaped face, with crisp hair and moustache beginning to go
iron-grey--the face of a man who knows his own mind and is contented with
that knowledge. His figure too, well-braced and upright, with the back
of the head carried like a soldier's, confirmed the impression, not so
much of self-sufficiency, as of the sufficiency of his habits of life and
thought. And there was apparent about all his movements that peculiar
unconsciousness of his surroundings which comes to those who live a great
deal in the public eye, have the material machinery of existence placed
exactly to their hands, and never need to consider what others think of
them. Taking his seat, and still perusing the paper, he at once began to
eat what was put before him; then noticing that his eldest daughter had
come in and was sitting down beside him, he said:

"Bore having to go up in such weather!"

"Is it a Cabinet meeting?"

"Yes. This confounded business of the balloons." But the rather
anxious dark eyes of Agatha's delicate narrow face were taking in the
details of a tray for keeping dishes warm on a sideboard, and she was
thinking: "I believe that would be better than the ones I've got, after
all. If William would only say whether he really likes these large trays
better than single hot-water dishes!" She contrived how-ever to ask in
her gentle voice--for all her words and movements were gentle, even a
little timid, till anything appeared to threaten the welfare of her
husband or children:

"Do you think this war scare good for Eustace's prospects, Father?"

But her father did not answer; he was greeting a new-comer, a tall,
fine-looking young