beautiful--but
too big!" And she added aloud:

"Shut your mouth! You will get one down!"

They spoke no more till they had entered the avenue; then Lady Casterley
said sharply:

"Who is this coming down the drive?"

"Mr. Courtier, I think."

"What does he mean by it, with that leg?"

"He is coming to talk to you, Granny."

Lady Casterley stopped short.

"You are a cat," she said; "a sly cat. Now mind, Babs, I won't have it!"

"No, darling," murmured Barbara; "you shan't have it--I'll take him off
your hands."

"What does your mother mean," stammered Lady Casterley, "letting you grow
up like this! You're as bad as she was at your age!"

"Worse!" said Barbara. "I dreamed last night that I could fly!"

"If you try that," said Lady Casterley grimly, "you'll soon come to
grief. Good-morning, sir; you ought to be in bed!"

Courtier raised his hat.

"Surely it is not for me to be where you are not!" And he added gloomily:
"The war scare's dead!"

"Ah!" said Lady Casterley: "your occupation's gone then. You'll go back
to London now, I suppose." Looking suddenly at Barbara she saw that the
girl's eyes were half-closed, and that she was smiling; it seemed to Lady
Casterley too or was it fancy?--that she shook her head.

CHAPTER XIII

Thanks to Lady Valleys, a patroness of birds, no owl was ever shot on the
Monkland Court estate, and those soft-flying spirits of the dusk hooted
and hunted, to the great benefit of all except the creeping voles. By
every farm, cottage, and field, they passed invisible, quartering the
dark air. Their voyages of discovery stretched up on to the moor as far
as the wild stone man, whose origin their wisdom perhaps knew. Round
Audrey Noel's cottage they were as thick as thieves, for they had just
there two habitations in a long, old, holly-grown wall, and almost seemed
to be guarding the mistress of that thatched dwelling--so numerous were
their fluttering rushes, so tenderly prolonged their soft sentinel
callings. Now that the weather was really warm, so that joy of life was
in the voles, they found those succulent creatures of an extraordinarily
pleasant flavour, and on them each pair was bringing up a family of
exceptionally fine little owls, very solemn, with big heads, bright large
eyes, and wings as yet only able to fly downwards. There was scarcely
any hour from noon of the day (for some of them had horns) to the small
sweet hours when no one heard them, th