year more
than once the dawn had found her trying to decide between the Scylla of
the thankless post of lady companion to some wealthy parvenu on the
Riviera, and the Charybdis of raising money enough to allow her to
harbour paying guests in the no-man's-land of Earls Court.

Then Fate crossed her knees, and out of her lap had tumbled a widower
possessed of a substantial banking account and four children.

A few more days, a little more encouragement, and he would most
certainly have offered her his name and the half of his worldly goods
in return for her help in quelling the riotous behaviour of his
motherless brood.

But there had supervened the crisis at school.

And grasping for once in her life the necessity of immediate action if
she wished to prevent an embellished account of her niece's untoward
behaviour from reaching the man's ears, she had fled to Devon, leaving
behind a trail of dainty scented notes explaining that it was all on
account of a slight nervous breakdown from overstudy on the part of her
niece "who," she added casually, "as I think I told you, is the only
daughter of my dear brother, Colonel Hetth, V.C."

Snobbish, but quite effective as bait for a person who has not complete
control over the eighth letter of the alphabet.

That very morning, quite unheedful of the beauties of the little witch
village, she had gone to collect her mail lying at the post office,
which in summer is almost hidden in its garden of flowers; and amongst
an assortment of spring sale catalogues from emporiums, mostly situated
in South Kensington, had found a letter from the widower, begging to be
allowed to come down for a change of air, and an opportunity of laying
a proposition before her.

She had wandered up the side of the hill, unmindful of the birds and
buds almost bursting with the intoxication of spring; had pitched the
catalogues anywhere on the grass, as is the wont of the untidy who have
no bond with nature, and had tried to solve the problem as she scraped
the mud, with the aid of a twig, from her Louis-Quinze heels.

But she was harassed, poor, hapless creature, for more than one reason.

The words of alarm from the nurse, the innuendoes from departing
maid-servants, and the direct warning from the old specialist which had
long since faded from her mind, had been forcibly revived by the
happenings at the school; and being one of those who invariably plump
for the worst, and without giving the sligh