The Saxon family had squeezed themselves and certain of their possessions into the little home at Wynch-on-the-Wold, and while flowers still bloomed in the garden and apples hung ripe on the trees it seemed a kind of continuation of their summer holiday; but as the novelty wore off, and stormy weather came on, their altered circumstances began to be more evident. Most of us can make a plucky fight against fate at first--there had been something rather romantic about retiring to the bungalow--but the plain prose of the proceeding was yet to come, and there were certainly many disadvantages to be faced. Mr. Saxon was worried about business affairs; he was a proud, sensitive man, and felt it a great "come down" to be obliged to resign Rotherwood, and the social position it had stood for, and confess himself to the world as one of the "newly poor." It was humiliating to have to walk or take a tram where he had formerly used his car in fulfilling his professional engagements, hard not to be able to entertain his friends, and perhaps hardest of all to be obliged to refuse subscriptions to the numerous charities in the town where his name had always stood conspicuously upon the liberal list. His temper, never his strongest point, suffered under the test, and he would come home from Grovebury in the evenings tired out, moody and fretful, and inclined to find fault with everything and everybody. It took all his wife's sunny sweetness of disposition to keep the home atmosphere cheerful and peaceful, for Egbert also had a temper, and was bitterly disappointed at not being sent to Cambridge, and at having to settle down in the family office instead. Father and son did not get on remarkably well together. Mr. Saxon, like many parents, pooh-poohed his boy's business efforts, and would sometimes--to Egbert's huge indignation--point out his mistakes before the clerks. He would declare, in a high and mighty way, that his own son should not receive special preference at the office, and so overdid his attitude of impartiality that he contrived to give him a worse time than any of his other articled pupils. Athelstane, who had begun his medical course at the University of Birkshaw, also had his troubles. He had hoped to study at Guy's Hospital in preparation for the London M.D., and to an ambitious young fellow it was hard to be satisfied with a provincial degree. The thirty-mile motor ride to and from Birkshaw soon lost its charm, and the difficulties of home study in the evenings were great in a bungalow with thin partition walls and a family not always disposed to quiet. As a rule, he kept his feelings to himself, but he went about with a depressed look, and got into a habit of lifting his eyebrows which was leaving permanent lines on a hitherto smooth and unwrinkled forehead.