Edith; I left him to suppose you were too much engrossed in your present work to wish to give it up just at once. But, oh my dear Basil, it is indeed a cruel disappointment to me not to have you here.

Your affectionate Aunt,

Emmeline Albury."

"P.S.—The £500 for Rectory furniture will now be invested in your name, ready for you when the time comes, whether I live or die."

The Wind of Dunowe

It was growing late, the Autumn evening was advanced out of the long northern twilight to be on the edge of dark, when Reginald Noyes left the Dunowe smoking-room where he had been chatting to his host, and dashed upstairs, two steps at a stride, to dress for dinner. The warning bell had rung some time before, so he was not surprised to find his wife already attired in her evening gown. She was seated with her back to him, warming her toes at the wide and glowing fire of peat.

Noyes would have been just as well pleased not to find her there—a moderate statement of his sentiments. It was a case of the grey mare being the better horse, and the young man had not always an easy time with his chosen partner. To one sensitive to such indications, the psychic atmosphere of the big state bedroom was charged with displeasure, and this was accentuated by a shrug of an averted shoulder. Surely something more was wrong than the mere fact that Noyes was behind time.

"Why, Flossie, what's the matter?"

The frivolous nickname ill-fitted Mrs. Noyes, at least in her present mood. And at all times she was rather of the severe type of beauty, even when the sun shone—the metaphorical sun.

"Matter? Matter enough! It's no use: I can't stick it out here for another ten days, to the limit of our invitation. I'm bored to death. Coming to Dunowe has been altogether a mistake. You must make some excuse for a change of plan, and take me back to town."

"Why—you wanted to cultivate the MacIvors: you even schemed to be invited. You were as pleased as I was when we were both asked—every bit. The shooting is excellent, and MacIvor such a good fellow. And I'm sure his mother received us with every kindness. Have you and she fallen out?"

"Do I ever fall out with any one? I've no patience with you when you are absurd. Of course there has been no quarrel. But I'm sick to death of this ghostly old barrack. There isn't the least chance here of bringing off any coup. And, as you know very well, if we don't between now and Christmas--!"

Here there was an effective pause. Noyes winced. Probably he did know what was meant. But he put up a further objection.

"You said, with a view to coups that this visit was the very thing you wanted—to get into a house-party with Mrs. Noel MacIvor, and have a chance to draw the feather over her. By George, Noel was a lucky man when he married her, in spite of the snub nose and the American accent. A girl with two millions to her fortune, and likely to have as much again when Poppa dies. And when all the Maolvors are as poor as rats, and he the second son!"

"Two millions—yes. But it seems they were dollars, not pounds sterling, as we heard. And the girl is as sharp and as well able to take care of herself and her money as—as the paternal Yankee himself."

"Well—she can be fairly generous when she likes. MacIvor tells me she offered to restore Dunowe for him,—put the Castle in complete repair. That was pretty well for a sister-in-law.