the other side of the hall, and she passed into a low dining room, dimly lit with shaded lamps. The elder brother rose from his chair as they entered, although his salutation was even grimmer than his first welcome. He was wearing a dress-coat of old-fashioned cut, and a black stock, and he remained standing, without any smile or word of greeting, until she had taken her seat. Behind his chair stood a very ancient man servant in a gray pepper-and-salt suit, with a white tie, whose expression, at the entrance of this unexpected guest, seemed curiously to reflect the inhospitable instincts of his master.

Although conscious of this atmosphere of antagonism, Louise looked around her with frank admiration as she took her place in the high-backed chair which John was holding for her. The correctness of the setting appealed strongly to her artistic perceptions. The figures and features of the two men—Stephen, tall, severe, stately; John, amazingly handsome, but of the same type; the black-raftered ceiling; the Jacobean sideboard; the huge easy chairs; the fine prints upon the walls; the pine log which burned upon the open hearth—nowhere did there seem to be a single alien or modern note.

The table was laid with all manner of cold dishes, supplemented by others upon the sideboard. There were pots of jam and honey, a silver teapot and silver spoons and forks of quaint design, strangely cut glass, and a great Dresden bowl filled with flowers.

"I am afraid," John remarked, "that you are not used to dining at this hour. My brother and I are very old-fashioned in our customs. If we had had a little longer notice—"

"I never in my life saw anything that looked so delicious as your cold chicken," Louise declared. "May I have some—and some ham? I believe that you must farm some land yourselves. Everything looks as if it were home-made or home-grown."

"We are certainly farmers," John admitted, with a smile, "and I don't think there is much here that isn't of our own production."

"Of course, one must have some occupation, living so far out of the world," Louise murmured. "I really am the most fortunate person," she continued. "My car comes to grief in what seems to be a wilderness, and I find myself in a very palace of plenty!"

"I am not sure that your maid agrees," John laughed. "She seemed rather horrified when she found that there was no woman servant about the place."

"Aline is spoiled, without a doubt," her mistress declared. "But is that really the truth?"

"Absolutely."

"But how do you manage?" Louise went on. "Don't you need dairymaids, for instance?"

"The farm buildings are some distance away from the house," John explained. "There is quite a little colony at the back, and the woman who superintends the dairy lives there. It is only in the house that we are entirely independent of your sex. We manage, somehow or other, with Jennings here and two boys."

"You are not both woman-haters, I hope?"

Her younger host flashed a warning glance at Louise, but it was too late. Stephen had laid down his knife and fork and was leaning in her direction.

"Madam," he intervened, "since you have asked the question, I will confess that I have never known any good come to a man of our family from the friendship or service of women. Our family history, if ever you should come to know it, would amply justify my brother and myself for our attitude toward your sex."

"Stephen!" John remonstrated, a slight frown upon his face. "Need you weary our guest with your peculiar views? It is scarcely polite, to say the least of it."

The older man sat, for a moment, grim and silent.

"Perhaps you are right, brother," he admitted. "This lady did not seek our company, but it may interest her to know that she is the first woman who has crossed the threshold of Peak Hall for a matter of six years."

Louise looked from one to the other, half incredulously.

"Do you really mean it? Is that literally true?" she asked John.

"Absolutely," the young man assured her; "but please remember that you are none the less heartily welcome here. We have few women neighbors, and intercourse with them seems to have slipped out of our lives. Tell me, how far have you come to-day, and where did you hope to sleep to-night?"

Louise hesitated for a moment. For some reason or other, the question seemed to bring with it some unexpected and disturbing thought.

"I was motoring from Edinburgh. As regards to-night, I had not made up my mind. I rather hoped to reach Kendal. My journey is not at all an interesting matter to talk about," she went on. "Tell me about your life here. It sounds most delightfully pastoral. Do you really mean that you produce nearly everything yourselves? Your honey and preserves and bread and butter, for instance—are they all home-made?"

"And our hams," the young man laughed, "and everything else upon the table. You underestimate the potentiality of male labor. Jennings is certainly a better cook than the average woman. Everything you see was cooked by him. We have a sort of secondary kitchen, though, down at the bailiff's, where the preserves are made and some of the other things."

"And you live here all the year round?" she asked.

"My brother," John told her, "has not been further away than the nearest market-town for nearly twenty years."

Her eyes grew round with astonishment.

"But you go to London sometimes?"

"I was there eight years ago. Since then I have not been further away than Carlisle or Kendal. I go into the camp near Kendal for three weeks every year—Territorial training, you know."

"But how do you pass your time? What do you do with yourself?" she asked.

"Farm," he answered. "Farming is our daily occupation. Then for amusement we hunt, shoot, and fish. The seasons pass before we know it."

She looked appraisingly at John Strangewey. Notwithstanding his sun-tanned cheeks and the splendid vigor of his form, there was nothing in the least agricultural about his manner or his appearance. There was humor as well as intelligence in his clear, gray eyes. She opined that the books which lined one side of the room were at once his property and his hobby.

"It is a very healthy life, no doubt," she said; "but somehow it seems incomprehensible to think of a man like yourself living always in such an out-of-the-way corner, with no desire to see what is going on in the world, or to be able to form any estimate of the changes in men's thoughts and habits. Human life seems to me so much more interesting than anything else. Does this all sound a little impertinent?" she wound up naïvely. "I am so sorry! My friends spoil me, I believe, and I get into the habit of saying things just as they come into my head."

John's lips were open to reply, but Stephen once more intervened.

"Life means a different thing to each of us, madam," he said sternly. "There are many born with the lust for cities and the crowded places in their hearts, born with the desire to mingle with their fellows, to absorb the conventional vices and virtues, to become one of the multitude. It has been different with us Strangeweys."

Jennings, at a sign from his master, removed the tea equipage, evidently produced in honor of their visitor. Three tall-stemmed glasses were placed upon the table, and a decanter of port reverently produced.

Louise had fallen for a moment or two into a fit of abstraction. Her eyes were fixed upon the opposite wall, from which, out of their faded frames, a row of grim-looking men and women, startlingly like her two hosts, seemed to frown down upon her.

"Is that your father?" she asked, moving her head