“It is strange to me,” she said, “that coming from the city, as you do, you should not know about such things.” Here she sent him the quickest possible glance from a pair of inscrutable eyes, and he began to wonder if she were not merely amusing herself. He was tempted to kiss her, but wisely refrained.

“Iris,” called Aunt Peace, from the doorway, “will you wash the Royal Worcester [Pg 53]plate? And Lynn, it is time you were practising.”

[Pg 53]

Lynn worked hard until the bell rang for luncheon. When he went down, he found the others already at the table. “We did not wait for you,” Aunt Peace explained, “because we were in a hurry. Immediately after luncheon, on Wednesdays, I take my nap. I sleep from two to three. Will you please see that the house is quiet?”

She spoke to Margaret, but she looked at Lynn. “Which means,” said he, “that those who are studying the violin will kindly not practise until after three o’clock, and that it would be considered a kindness if they would not walk much in the house, their feet being heavy.”

“Lynn,” said the old lady, irrelevantly, “you are extremely intelligent. I expect great things of you.”

That weekly hour of luxury was the only relaxation in Miss Field’s busy, happy life. Breakfast at seven and bed at ten—this was the ironclad rule of the house. Ever since she came to East Lancaster, Iris had kept solemn guard over the front door on Wednesdays, from two to three. Rash [Pg 54]visitors never reached the bell, but were met, on the doorstep, by a little maid whose tiny finger rested upon her lip. “Hush,” she would say, “Aunt Peace is asleep!” Interruptions were infrequent, however, for East Lancaster knew Miss Field’s habits—and respected them.

[Pg 54]

“Good-bye, my dears,” she said, as she paused at the foot of the winding stairs, “I leave you for a far country, where, perhaps, I shall meet some of my old friends. I shall visit strange lands and have many new experiences, some of which will doubtless be impossible and grotesque. I shall be gone but one short hour, and when I return I shall have much to tell you.”

“She dreams,” explained Iris, in a low voice, as the mistress of the mansion smiled back at them over the railing, “and when she wakes she always tells me.”

Lynn went out for a long tramp, after vainly endeavouring to persuade his mother or Iris to accompany him. “I’m 

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