As she stood there, one hand tightly clenched a letter; and no one who saw her still attitude could have imagined what a tumult was sweeping over her soul. Behind her was the breakfast table. The silver tea-kettle was boiling on its stand. A packet of letters lay on the corner of the table. There was a fragrant scent of bacon and kidneys from a chafing dish. A bright-eyed Cairn terrier stood near the blazing fire, occasionally giving quick glances at his mistress, but rejoicing too much in the warmth and comfort of his position to join her at the window. And then the door suddenly burst open and in came a short square elderly man, with a slight grey moustache and a tanned weather-beaten face. He looked the essence of fussy energy, and of health. He snapped his fingers at the terrier, and spoke to the girl: "What ho, Adrienne! How's yourself? No hunting for me! If I weren't such a busy man, I should be hipped by such an outlook. Drake has been telling me the stable pipes have burst. I must go and have a look at them after breakfast. Now where on earth did I put that new-fangled stuff for mending pipes, and grates, and holes of every description? Didn't I give it to you to keep safely in your store cupboard?" Adrienne slipped her letter in her pocket, and turned a smiling face towards her uncle, General Chesterton. "Now, Uncle Tom, you know very well you did not. Your patent foods and plasters and patchers-up are always in the gun-room. Since I kept your sticking-plaster in my store-room, and you turned my whole cupboard topsy-turvy one day when I was out, I have refused to keep anything more. Come and have breakfast, and don't touch your fat packet of letters till we have had some food." "Where's Derrick? What a little martinet you try to be! But that packet is mostly bills, I bet! Here's the lazybones! What do you think of our white world? I told you snow was in the air last night." The new-comer had made his entry very quietly, and took his seat at the table without a word. His appearance was hardly that of a naval man, though he was an Admiral with a good many medals. He was a tall, handsome man, with an intellectual brow, clean-shaven face and dreamy eyes like his niece's. The brothers were devoted to each other and had lived together since their retirement, in their old home, a small manor-house in Devon. Adrienne had come to them three years ago, fresh from her boarding school at Folkestone. She bullied them, she coaxed them, and she mothered them by turns. All three were on the happiest possible terms. General Chesterton's chief hobby was horses and hunting; but he was only able to afford to keep one hunter, and depended very often on mounts from his nearest neighbour, Sir Godfrey Sutherland.