t one
tree tells to another, but if your heart is heavy within you, you will
hear only a dirge in the hush of their waving tops.

As Sara emerged from the shelter of the woods, her eyes instinctively
sought the great belt of trees that crowned the opposite hill, with
the grey bulk of the house standing out in sharp relief against their
eternal green. A little smile of pure pleasure flitted across her face;
to her there was something lovable and rather charming about the very
architectural inconsistencies which prevented Barrow Court from being,
in any sense of the word, a show place.

The central portion of the house, was comparatively modern, built of
stone in solid Georgian fashion, but quaintly flanked at either end by a
massive, mediaeval tower, survival of the good old days when the Lovells
of Fallowdene had held their own against all comers, not even excepting,
in the case of one Roderic, his liege lord and master the King, the
latter having conceived a not entirely unprovoked desire to deprive him
of his lands and liberty--a desire destined, however, to be frustrated
by the solid masonry of Barrow.

A flagged terrace ran the whole length of the long, two-storied house,
broadening out into wide wings at the base of either tower, and, below
the terrace, green, shaven lawns, dotted with old yew, sloped down
to the edge of a natural lake which lay in the hollow of the valley,
gleaming like a sheet of silver in the morning sunlight.

Prim walks, bordered by high box hedges, intersected the carefully
tended gardens, and along one of these Sara took her way, quickening her
steps to a run as the booming summons of a gong suddenly reverberated on
the air.

She reached the house, flushed and a little breathless, and, tossing
aside her hat as she sped through the big, oak-beamed hall, hurried into
a pleasant, sunshiny room, where a couple of menservants were moving
quietly about, putting the finishing touches to the breakfast table.

An invalid's wheeled chair stood close to the open window, and in it,
with a rug tucked about his knees, was seated an elderly man of some
sixty-two or three years of age. He was leaning forward, giving animated
instructions to a gardener who listened attentively from the terrace
outside, and his alert, eager, manner contrasted oddly with the
helplessness of limb indicated by the necessity for the wheeled chair.

"That's all, Digby," he said briskly. "I'll go through the hot-houses
myse