the heart of the clear, cold country.

 CHAPTER III

"GAY BOWERS"

THE old country house known as "Gay Bowers," which had been my aunt's home ever since she married, was situated some five miles from Chelmsford and no nearer to the railway. It was still early in the afternoon when I reached that station, but the air struck me as rather more than fresh as I stepped out of the train. I shivered as I buttoned my coat more tightly about me and looked round, hoping to discern a friendly face amid the bustling crowd on the platform, for I felt sure that my aunt would send some one to meet me.

"Nan!" said a voice beside me, and I turned to see a tall, well-set-up young fellow looking down on me with bright merry eyes. For a moment I was bewildered, then I recognised the face, which was still boyish in spite of the carefully cultivated moustache and the height from which he gazed on me. This was Jack Upsher, son of the Vicar of Greentree, the parish to which "Gay Bowers" belonged. He had been my playfellow when, as a child, I spent my summer holidays at "Gay Bowers"; but of late years he had been absent from the vicarage whenever I happened to visit aunt. So we had not met since we were both grown-up, and it was rather audacious of him to address me in that familiar way, but I did not resent it, especially as he hastened to add:

"I beg your pardon; I should have said 'Miss Darracott,' but you have altered so little from the 'Nan' I used to know, that the name sprang of itself to my lips."

"Indeed I hoped I had altered a good deal," was my reply. "But you are just the same, Jack, except that you have grown so immensely."

He laughed heartily as he shook my hand.

"That's right, Nan; call me 'Jack,' and snub me as you always did, and we shall feel quite at home together. How like you to tell me that I've grown, just as if I were a schoolboy home for the holidays!"

"It is perfectly true," I said.

"Exactly," he returned, "and I always had the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from you. To be accurate, I stand precisely six feet in my socks."

"Then you have attained your highest ambition?" I said.

"Not quite," he replied; "but now you mention it, I remember that as a kid I 

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