terse, elastic prose which is without any magic of style, and his appeal to the heart of his reader is through the

reason rather than, as is Mr. Masefield's, through the imagination.

The Oxford and Cambridge Review.

George Lowther.

CHAPTER V.

A hundred years or more ago the beautiful district of hills and lakes in which Delia lived was sparsely inhabited by gentlefolk. In those days people liked a landscape to be smiling. Fat rolling pastures, avenues, and parks were what men of family wished to inherit and men of new fortunes to acquire. The wet climate of our hill country and its wildness kept the crowd away. But in these days the wilds are easily overrun. Men of business have their homes on the fellside and their workshops in a northern town. The whole neighborhood of Hawkmere, Wrayside, and Helm Water is populated mostly by people of large means who are able to buy a considerable slice of land with a house. so that one roof is a decent distance from another, and the horrid word suburbs only comes into curmudgeon minds that want to see no roof but their own.

Delia, as we know, was perfectly satisfied with the condition of things at home. She was acquainted with every one, and intimate with a few. Her chief friend had always been Mary Audley, and before the days of cars and private telephones, when in fact they were children, they had both regretted that their homes were eight miles apart and that a meeting usually meant correspondence and arrangement. The Audleys lived at Hawkmere in a house that had a fine view of the lake and the Pavey Pikes. Admiral Audley's father had built it when

he married an heiress who brought the fortune to the family that her descendants were still enjoying. The Audleys themselves had been on the spot for a long time, if you can say that of a race of soldiers and sailors who are rarely at home. They were not people who had made money or great names, but they were steady-living pleasant people with a good but not an offensive conceit of themselves and a warm heart for their friends. They admired Delia almost as unreservedly as her uncle did, but they had no idea of Jem's state of mind. Jem was a "sport" in the family, and though they were fond and proud of him, they were all sure that he was not an Audley. Mrs. Audley had been a Darcey-Demain, but she said no Darcey-Demain that ever lived would have taken any interest in the inside of an owl or have allowed his curiosity to get the better of his manners. She made this severe remark when Jem was a little boy and pulled Delia's stuffed owl to pieces, and he felt it a good deal. He was on excellent terms with his family, but as he grew up it was borne in upon him that his inside, mentally speaking, was not quite like theirs. The heiress who married his grandfather had been a Miss Gibson, and her money had been made in trade. It was generally thought, but not said, for no one wished to hurt the boy's feelings, that Jem was a Gibson inside and out. grandmother's portrait done in oils by a fashionable Victorian painter betrayed her plainness, her dark hair and

His

skin, and a look of intellect about the heavy brow that was very well in a man but almost oppressive in a woman. Luckily the plainness had not descended to her grand-daughters Mary and Christabel, both pretty girls, one a year older than Delia and one still a flapper. Just at present the girls were at home with their parents, but the three sons were all away. Francis was with his regiment, Robert with his ship, and Jem, as we know, in London. But the three sons were coming for Christmas and would stay over New Year for Delia's dance at Helm Close. There was also to be a dance at Wrayside Town Hall that week jointly given by some of the ladies of the neighborhood, and this morning the Audley girls had received a third invitation from the Gilbottles! They were still looking at it, still astonished and annoyed by it, when Delia arrived in her uncle's car, and when she had joined them in the morning room her first action was to take a similar card from the bag she carried and show it to them.

"What is the world coming to?" asked Mrs. Audley.

"You have never even called," said Mary.

"We did," said Christabel. "They have some excuse for asking us."

"My dear, we only called once because your father wished it," said Mrs. Audley. "He always likes to be neighborly and would not take my advice and wait. But you know that when I got home I took a firm line and said never again."

"And we were not at home when they returned the call," said Mary.

"Did that stop them from coming in?" asked Delia.

"Have you had them at Helm Close?" said Mrs. Audley. "Nothing those people do would surprise me."

"The girls and their beastly dogs live amongst Dad's pheasants," said ChrisLIVING AGE. VOL. LVI. 2962

last week. I saw her when Long rowed me back from the Sherwins. She's as pretty as paint. I don't wonder at Algy."

"My dear Christabel!" said Mrs. Audley.

"I know her," said Delia unwillingly. "We met in Berlin and travelled back to London together. In the hotel I introduced her to Jem, and she asked him to introduce her to the Gilbottles. So she really got there through us."

"I suppose that's why they've asked you to their dance," said Mrs. Audley. "They've done worse than that," said Delia.

Mrs. Audley looked up from her correspondence. She was one of the ladies who were giving the Wrayside dance, and had more than usual on her hands in consequence.

"They called while we were away," Delia narrated. "We have never called on them, but that didn't stop them. They brought Miss Jordan, and said she was a friend of mine, and would like to see the house, and the view from the windows. Unfortunately Smith was out. He would have grappled with them. But a new young housemaid opened the door, and she told Martha they swarmed in . . .

Mrs. Gilbottle has just had a set of false teeth, but no one is supposed to know a word about it except her maid."

"Christabel, how do you know about it?" asked Mrs. Audley with rebuke in her glance.

"Davis tells me when she brushes my hair," said the flapper unabashed. "I love gossip, and Davis is a splendid gossip."

"Not to me," said Mrs. Audley. "Or to me," said Mary.

"That's where I score." said Christa

bel, "I hear it all. Davis and Mrs.

Gilbottle's maid are pals. They meet

at the end of our drive, and have long talks and the other day there was a dinner party, and in one of those silences that come, Mrs. Trumper asked Mrs. Gilbottle right across the room, if she liked her new 'eating-apparatus, and if it worked easily. Mrs. Gilbottle went as red as claret, and glared, and never answered a word."

"Were you there, Christabel?" asked Mrs. Audley.

"No, but I know all about it: the quarrel happened when the dinner party had gone, and then it came out that Mrs. Trumper had meant the new hot-water pipes in the hall."

"I can't think why they stay in a neighborhood where no one wants them," said Mary. "It can't be pleasant to be left out as they are."

"No one thought of leaving them out at first," said Mrs. Audley. "We were all glad when we heard that Blazey Hall was taken."

"They certainly are impossible,” said Delia.

When she had gone to Berlin a year ago the Gilbottles had not been long at Blazey Hall, but she had seen the various members of the family, and in their case to see was enough. The way the girls did their hair, tilted their hats, and loafed about with common looking young men condemned them; their brother was the image of Mr. Punch's young Gorgius Midas and the parents were plainly coarse-grained people with money. You would have expected them to live in an expensive suburb of a big city and to find Hawkmere dull. Before she went abroad Delia had sometimes met them in the Wrayside shops, but as she had not called these encounters had been without embarrassment. Now she might any day come across Lydia Jordan in their company and find it difficult to ignore them. As she went home from Applethwaite she reflected on these

things, and when she stopped the car at the chief draper's shop in Wrayside she had instantly to make up her mind what to do. For the shop was swarming with Gilbottles, and from amongst them emerged the small, graceful figure and vivid face of Lydia Jordan. She looked so delighted to see Delia and was so clever and quick to understand her and get out of the shop and into the car that it was impossible to be anything but kind and friendly.

"We can talk better here," said Delia. "How are you getting on? Are you comfortable?"

Lydia's little shrug was expressive.

"I have a good room and plenty to eat," she said. "It is better than with my aunt in Berlin. I should have written to thank you, Miss Middleton, but I thought I would wait.

"You have nothing to thank me for," said Delia. "I should not have sent you to the Gilbottles."

"I was glad to get under cover anywhere," said Lydia in a tone of apology; "my cousins would have taken me but they are very poor. I didn't want to be a burden on them." "I suppose you teach the younger children?"

"Yes: the kiddies. Mrs. Gilbottle always calls them the kiddies. And I converse in French with the young ladies and Mr. Algernon. We never talk at Blazey Hall. We converse: we never begin anything: we commence: we have serviettes embroidered with the Gilbottle crest, and though we talk of luckshery' we are most careful about aitches. Some of us nearly knock people down with them."

"You must come and see me by yourself," said Delia and then drew back a little because she saw Mrs. Gilbottle with her two daughter Magnolia and Jessamine coming out of the draper's shop. But Mrs. Gilbottle was not the woman to be daunted by a gesture. She came up to the car and

talked to Delia through the open window.

"How do you do, Miss Middleton," she said, "You and Miss Jordan having a little gossip? But the best of friends must part when it's lunch time and it's all that now, so come along, Miss Jordan. Mr. Gilbottle always says his family may please themselves between meals so long as they'll appear punctual at meals. He's a very successful man, as you may judge, Miss Middleton, by our style of living, and he puts it all down to understanding that time is money, never wastes a minute I assure you, and that's more than most of us can say. I'm sorry you weren't at home when we brought your young friend to call last week, but anyhow we've made a beginning, and I hope you're coming to dance."

our

So far Delia had not spoken, but she had opened the door of the car for Lydia to get out: and now as she shook hands she murmured something vague about seeing her again.

"You must come over and see Miss Jordan before the dance," said Mrs. Gilbottle. "I always make the governess one of ourselves. Can't you fix a day now and come to lunch "

"I'm afraid not," said Delia, "I was just asking Miss Jordan if she could come to us. I seldom leave my uncle."

"Why can't he come too?" inquired Mrs. Gilbottle.

"Oh! he has lumbago," said Delia, "but if Miss Jordan could come to us some day I would send the car for her and let it take her back."

It was very hard on Delia. While she tackled Mrs. Gilbottle Lydia stood behind the lady with mischief and comprehension in her sparkling eyes: and as the dialogue proceeded she began to laugh and nearly to make Delia laugh. But Mrs. Gilbottle was now reinforced by two large splendid daugh

ters, and the elder one, Magnolia, answered what Delia had just said.

"We have three cars of our own," she intimated, "and we have not put down our horses as most people do. We have a landau and an omnibus and various small traps. I daresay we can send Miss Jordan, and fetch her too."

"But not on a Saturday or Sunday," said Mrs. Gilbottle, who now became rather huffy. "Mr. Gilbottle is at home for his week-ends, and I can't have the kiddies tearing round then and aggravating him. He likes his quiet, does Mr. Gilbottle."

"I am sure he does," said Delia, signing to her chauffeur to start, though she had not bought the black braid her maid wanted. "My uncle can't stand children for more than five minutes. Good-bye, Mrs. Gilbottle."

But though her manner was urbanity itself she felt vexed with everything and everybody: with the Gilbottles because they were Gilbottles, and with Lydia for being there, and with herself for having stopped at the draper's shop when they were in it. When she got home she sent Mrs. Gilbottle a formal refusal, and she sent Lydia an invitation to the dance at Helm Close' on New Year's Eve. With it she enclosed a note offering to fetch her, put her up for the night, and send her back next day.

Her uncle was not in for lunch, but at teatime she told him what she had done, and found that he approved of inviting Lydia.

"We can't help that."

"But isn't it difficult to ignore them and ask their governess?"

"I don't see it," said Delia, and her tone was final. She began to talk of Christmas presents and Christmas festivities and of the music it was best to have on New Year's Eve. She knew that her uncle liked a long gossip with her at teatime about home affairs, and whenever she was not too busy she obliged him. She had taken a firm hold of the domestic reins already and had shown her team that she meant to keep them in hand. Behind her stood old Martha with her knowledge and experience, but Martha had never possessed the girl's courage. One or two swift and justifiable dismissals and a re-arrangement of work had established a wholesome belief in kitchen and garret that Miss Middleton had a head on her shoulders and eyes in the back of her head.

For many years it had been the custom for Mr. Butler and Delia to spend Christmas Day with the Audleys and for the Audleys to spend next day at Helm Close. The thought of Christmas always associated itself in Delia's mind with this long interchange of visits, presents, and holiday making. Her memories went back to years ago when as a child she had gone to church with her uncle on Christmas morning. and then driven to Applethwaite with him in a carriage laden with presents. She saw herself arrive in the warm holly-trimmed hall, where Mrs. Audley received the motherless little girl with affectionate kindness. The lighted pudding, the crackers, the great iced Christmas cake, the presents, and the Christmas games were all at Applethwaite and the skating was next day on Helm Water. One Christmas Jem and she had stolen out after tea and skated by moonlight and enjoyed themselves hugely. That was the year before she put her hair up, when she