th Africa!
They must have some place to go where they can get warm! Now for
unpacking, or any sort of manual labour which will put my frozen blood
in circulation!"

Slapping her hands, beating her breast, stamping her feet, Mrs. Loring
removed a few dresses from the offending trunk to the mahogany
wardrobe, and disposed her effects neatly in the drawers of bureau and
highboy.

"I have made a mistake at the very beginning," she thought. "I
supposed nothing could be too pretty for the Manor House and now I am
afraid my worst is too fine. The Manor House of Stoke Revel! Wouldn't
that appeal to anyone's imagination? Now what for to-night? White
satin with crystal? Back you go into the trunk! Back goes the
silver grey chiffon! I'll have it re-hung over flannel! Avaunt!
heliotrope velvet with amethyst spangles, made with a view to
ensnaring the High Church clergy! I wish I had a princess dress of
moleskin with a court train of squirrel hanging from the shoulders!
Here is the thing; my black Liberty satin two years old. I will
cover part of my exposed neck and shoulders with a fichu of lace; my
black silk openwork stockings will be drawn on over a pair of
balbriggans, and the number of petticoats I shall don would discourage
a Scotch fishwife! To-morrow I'll write Mrs. Spalding's maid to buy
me two hot-water bottles, mittens, a box of quinine tablets and a
Shetland shawl.... What are these--_fans?_ Retire into the depths of
that tray and never look me in the face again!... _Parasols?_ I
wonder at your impertinence in coming here! I shall give you cod
liver oil and make you grow into umbrellas!"

Presently the dinner gong growled through the house, and Robinette,
still shivering, flung across her shoulders a shimmering scarf of
white and silver. It fell over her simple black dress in just the
right way, adding a last touch to the somewhat exotic grace which made
her a stranger in her mother's home. Then she fled down the darkening
passages, instinctively aware that unpunctuality was a crime in this
house. Yet in spite of her haste, she paused before the window of an
upper lobby, arrested by the scene it framed. Heavy rain still fell,
and the light, made greenish by the nearness of great trees just
coming into leaf, was cheerless and singularly cold. But that could
not mar the majesty of the outlook which made the Manor of Stoke
Revel, on its height, unique. Far below the house, the broad river
slipped towards the sea, betw