ll," said Mrs. Peter.

"She must have had a grandfather," I pointed out. "But I'm afraid he
never lived at Hilderton Hall. This is a great blow to me, and I shall
now resume my bacon."

I drew my plate back and Peter returned his map to his pocket.

"You're all very funny," said Celia, "but I know it was Hilderton Hall.
I've a good mind to take you there this morning and show it to you."

"Do," said Peter and I eagerly.

"It's a great big place----"

"That's what we're coming to see," I reminded her.

"Of course they may have sold some of the land, or--I mean, I know when
I used to stay there it was a--a great big place. I can't promise that
it----"

"It's no good now, Celia," I said sternly. "You shouldn't have boasted."

Hilderton was four miles off, and we began to approach it--Celia
palpably nervous--at about twelve o'clock that morning.

"Are you recognizing any of this?" asked Peter.

"N-no. You see I was only about eight----"

"You _must_ recognise the church," I said, pointing to it. "If you
don't, it proves either that you never lived at Hilderton or that you
never sang in the choir. I don't know which thought is the more
distressing. Now what about this place? Is this it?"

Celia peered up the drive.

"N-no; at least I don't remember it. I know there was a walnut tree in
front of the house."

"Is that all you remember?"

"Well, I was only about six----"

Peter and I both had a slight cough at the same time.

"It's nothing," said Peter, finding Celia's indignant eye upon him.
"Let's go on."

We found two more big houses, but Celia, a little doubtfully, rejected
them both.

"My grandfather-in-law was very hard to please," I apologized to Peter.
"He passed over place after place before he finally fixed on Hilderton
Hall. Either the heronry wasn't ventilated properly, or the decoy ponds
had the wrong kind of mud, or----"

There was a sudden cry from Celia.

"This is it," she said.

She stood at the entrance to a long drive. A few chimneys could be seen
in the distance. On either side of the gates was a high wall.

"I don't see the walnut tree," I said.

"Of course not, because you can't see the front of the house. But I feel
certain that this is the place."

"We want more proof than that," said Peter. "We must go in and find the
walnut tree."

"We can't all wander into another man's grounds looking for walnut
trees," I said, "with no better excuse than that Celia's
great-grandm