Admiral Chesterton was a keen fisherman and a great reader. He was gentle, neat, and very particular about conventions and propriety. He had a small room of his own which he called his study, and when he was not reading or manufacturing flies, he was compiling the family pedigree. He was as tidy as the tidiest spinster, a marked contrast to his brother the General, who never put a thing in its place, and was perpetually mislaying and losing what he wanted, in a hurry. The General was a great talker and very impulsive. If the Admiral was a gentle southerly breeze throughout the house, the General was a blustering noisy sou'wester. Nobody was in doubt as to whether he was in or out. He rarely sat down before dinnertime. But in the evening the two brothers played chess together. Neither of them cared for cards, and if laughed at by their friends for such an old-fashioned taste, would reply: "We have always played chess, and always will." And it was the only time that General Chesterton was comparatively quiet. Adrienne sat behind her tea and coffee, and poured out for her uncles. "I'm rather glad of a day indoors," observed the Admiral, as he stirred his coffee in a leisurely way; "our box from Mudie's arrived last night, did it not, Adrienne?" "Yes. I hadn't time to open it. Drake will take it to your study. I will tell him. I'm not going to have a day in the house, oh dear no!" "Where are you off to?" questioned the General. "If you go to the village, get me a pound of French nails, will you? That trellis kept me awake last night, tapping like a ghost against my window-ledge. There's always something annoying me at night. Two nights ago it was the donkey braying. And I can't do without my sleep. Extraordinary difficult thing to make yourself sleepy. I pounded my pillow, and turned it a dozen times, and then I rattled off all the limericks I could remember, and by that time I felt electricity all through me—my hair positively bristled. I struck a light and smoked two cigarettes, and I tried right side, left side and back in rotation one after each other. Still I couldn't droop an eyelid!" "I should think not," said Adrienne, with a merry laugh; "don't you know that you shouldn't be strenuous in bed?" "But was I? I was doing all in my power to put myself to sleep. Working at it till I got in a perfect fever of heat!" The Admiral was looking through the letters, and sorting out his from amongst them. "An invitation to dine at the Hall next Thursday." "I'm bothered if I'll go," said the General hastily; "for I'm hunting that day, and won't turn out again at night—not if I know it!" "But if this frost goes on, you won't be hunting," said Adrienne.