at great expense that her father and
brothers and their friends might kill them, called one another hoarsely,
as if in a continual state of gratulation at having for a year at least
escaped their destined end; between fields in which broods of partridges
ran in and out of the roots of the green corn; across a bridge near
which was a deep pool terrifically guarded by a notice-board against
those who might have disturbed the fat trout lying in its shadows;
across a gorse-grown common, sacred home of an old dog-fox that had
defied the South Meadshire hounds for five seasons; and so, out of her
father's property on to that of Jim Graham, in which blood relations of
the Kencote game and vermin were protected with equal care, in order
that the Grahams might fulfil the destiny appointed for them and the
Clintons and the whole race of squirearchy alike.

The immediate surroundings of Mountfield were prettier than those of
Kencote. The house stood at the foot of a wooded rise, and its long
white front showed up against a dark background of trees. It was older
in date than Georgian Kencote, and although its walls had been stuccoed
out of all resemblance to those of an old house, its high-pitched roof
and twisted chimney stacks had been left as they were. The effect was so
incongruous that even unaesthetic Alexander Graham, Jim's father, had
thought of uncovering the red brick again. But the front had been
altered to allow for bigger windows and a portico resembling that at
Kencote, and the architect whom he had consulted, had pressed him to
spend more money on it than he felt inclined to. So he had left it alone
and spent none; and Jim, who was not so well off as his father by the
amount of Muriel's portion and the never-to-be-forgiven Harcourt duties,
was not likely to have a thousand pounds to spare for making his rooms
darker for some years to come.

The old stable buildings, untouched by the restorer, flanked the house
on one side and the high red brick wall of the gardens on the other. The
drive sloped gently up from the gates through an undulating park more
closely planted than that of Kencote. There were some very old trees at
Mountfield and stretches of bracken here and there beneath them. It was
a pity that the house had been spoilt in appearance, but its amenities
were not wholly destroyed. Cicely knew it almost as well as she knew
Kencote, but she acknowledged its charm now as she drove up between the
oak and the youn