shrieked as they flapped along the lanes in
the darkness, And that night they struck at a mouse--and missed him.

The next morning, the Owls--fast asleep in charge of the
Constitution--were roused by voices of featherless beings all round
them. They opened their eyes, under protest, and saw instruments of
destruction attacking the creepers. Now in one direction, and now in
another, those instruments let in on the summer-house the horrid light
of day. But the Owls were equal to the occasion. They ruffled their
feathers, and cried, "No surrender!" The featherless beings plied their
work cheerfully, and answered, "Reform!" The creepers were torn down
this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter.
The Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, "That we do
stand by the Constitution," when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed
into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest shade.
There they sat winking, while the summer-house was cleared of the rank
growth that had choked it up, while the rotten wood-work was renewed,
while all the murky place was purified with air and light. And when the
world saw it, and said, "Now we shall do!" the Owls shut their eyes
in pious remembrance of the darkness, and answered, "My lords and
gentlemen, the Constitution is destroyed!"

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE GUESTS.

Who was responsible for the reform of the summer-house? The new tenant
at Windygates was responsible.

And who was the new tenant?

Come, and see.

In the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight the summer-house had
been the dismal dwelling-place of a pair of owls. In the autumn of the
same year the summer-house was the lively gathering-place of a crowd
of ladies and gentlemen, assembled at a lawn party--the guests of the
tenant who had taken Windygates.

The scene--at the opening of the party--was as pleasant to look at as
light and beauty and movement could make it.

Inside the summer-house the butterfly-brightness of the women in their
summer dresses shone radiant out of the gloom shed round it by the
dreary modern clothing of the men. Outside the summer-house, seen
through three arched openings, the cool green prospect of a lawn led
away, in the distance, to flower-beds and shrubberies, and, farther
still, disclosed, through a break in the trees, a grand stone house
which closed the view, with a fountain in front of it playing in the
sun.

They were half of