d still for a moment,
contemplating the stout, brown cob and the slim groom, who was waiting
anxiously to know whether Sir Peter would take the reins, or whether
he was to have the honour of driving his master home.

"I think I'll walk back, George," said Peter, with a nonchalant air.
"Take the cob along quietly, and let her ladyship know directly you
get in that I'm returning by Hewelscourt woods, and the ferry."

"Very good, Sir Peter," said the youth, zealously.

"It would be only civil to look in on the Hewels as Sarah is going
back to town so soon," said Peter to himself. "And it's rot driving
all those miles on the sunny side of the river, when it's barely three
miles from here to Hewelscourt and the ferry, and in the shade all the
way. I shall be back almost as soon as the cart."

A little old lady, dressed in shabby black silk, looked up from
the corner of the sofa next the window, when Peter entered the
drawing-room at Hewelscourt, after the usual delay, apologies, and
barking of dogs which attends the morning caller at the front door of
the average country house.

Peter, who had expected to see Mrs. Hewel and Sarah, repented himself
for a moment that he had come at all when he beheld this stranger, who
regarded him with a pair of dark eyes that seemed several times too
large for her small, wrinkled face, and who merely nodded her head in
response to his awkward salutation.

"Ah!" said the old lady, rather as though she were talking to herself,
"so this is the returned hero, no doubt. How do you do? The rejoicing
over your home-coming kept me awake half the night."

Peter was rather offended at this free-and-easy method of address. It
seemed to him that, since the old lady evidently knew who he was, she
might be a little more respectful in her manner.

"The festivities were all over soon after eleven," he said stiffly.
"But perhaps you are accustomed to early hours?"

"Perhaps I am," said the old lady; she seemed more amused than abashed
by Peter's dignity of demeanour. "At any rate, I like my beauty sleep
to be undisturbed; more especially in the country, where there are so
many noises to wake one up from four o'clock in the morning onwards."

"I have always understood," said Peter, who inherited his father's
respect for platitudes, "that the country was much quieter than the
town. I suppose you live in a town?"

"I suppose I do," said the old lady.

Peter put up his eyeglass indignantly, to quel