ardens. In the midst
of the private gardens stood the Hall, shut off by immense iron
palisades, like a lion in a cage at the Zoo. On the autumn afternoon of
his Historic visit, Denry passed with qualms through the double gates of
the palisade, and began to crunch the gravel of the broad drive that led
in a straight line to the overwhelming Palladian facade of the Hall.

Yes, he was decidedly glad that he had not brought his mule. As he
approached nearer and nearer to the Countess's front-door his arguments
in favour of the visit grew more and more ridiculous. Useless to remind
himself that he had once danced with the Countess at the municipal ball,
and amused her to the giggling point, and restored her lost fan to her.
Useless to remind himself that he was a quite exceptional young man,
with a quite exceptional renown, and the equal of any man or woman on
earth. Useless to remind himself that the Countess was notorious for her
affability and also for her efforts to encourage the true welfare of the
Five Towns. The visit was grotesque.

He ought to have written. He ought, at any rate, to have announced his
visit by a note. Yet only an hour earlier he had been arguing that he
could most easily capture the Countess by storm, with no warning or
preparations of any kind.

Then, from a lateral path, a closed carriage and pair drove rapidly up
to the Hall, and a footman bounced off the hammercloth. Denry could not
see through the carriage, but under it he could distinguish the skirts
of some one who got put of it. Evidently the Countess was just returning
from a drive. He quickened his pace, for at heart he was an audacious
boy.

"She can't eat me," he said.

This assertion was absolutely irrefutable, and yet there remained in his
bold heart an irrational fear that after all she _could_ eat him.
Such is the extraordinary influence of a Palladian facade!

After what seemed several hours of torture entirely novel in his
experience, he skirted the back of the carriage and mounted the steps to
the portal. And, although the coachman was innocuous, being apparently
carved in stone, Denry would have given a ten-pound note to find himself
suddenly in his club or even in church. The masonry of the Hall rose up
above him like a precipice. He was searching for the bell-knob in the
face of the precipice when a lady suddenly appeared at the doors. At
first he thought it was the Countess, and that heart of his began to
slip down the