It was an October afternoon, grey and still; the hall door stood open, as indeed it always did at Aussolas, and on the topmost of the broad limestone steps Mrs. Knox's white woolly dog sat, and magisterially regarded lake and wood and lawn. The tawny bracken flowed like a sea to the palings that bounded the lawn; along its verge squatted the rabbits, motionless for the most part, sometimes languidly changing their ground, with hops like the dying efforts of a mechanical toy. The woolly dog had evidently learned in many fruitless charges the futility of frontal attack; a close and menacing supervision from the altitude of the steps was all that was consistent with dignity, but an occasional strong shudder betrayed his emotion. The open door framed also a pleasing view of my new car, standing in beautiful repose at the foot of the steps, splashed with the mud of a twenty-mile run from an outlying Petty Sessions Court; her presence added, for me, the touch of romance. It was twilight in the back of the hall by the fireplace; the flames of the logs, branching like antlers, made a courteous and not too searching inquisition into dark corners, and lighted with a very suitable evasiveness Mrs. Knox's Witch of Endor profile. She wore her usual velvet bonnet; the rest of her attire recalled to my memory the summary of it by her kinswoman, Lady Knox, "A rag bag held together by diamond brooches." Yet, according to her wont, her personality was the only thing that counted; it reduced all externals to a proper insignificance. The object of my visit had ostensibly been to see her grandson, but Flurry was away for the night. "He's sleeping at Tory Lodge," said Mrs. Knox. "He's cubbing at Drumvoortneen, and he has to start early. He tried to torment me into allowing him to keep the hounds in the yard here this season, but I had the pleasure of telling him that old as I might be, I still retained possession of my hearing, my sense of smell, and, to a certain extent, of my wits." "I should have thought," I said discreetly, "that Tory Lodge was more in the middle of his country." "Undoubtedly," replied Flurry's grandmother; "but it is not in the middle of my straw, my meal, my buttermilk, my firewood, and anything else of mine that can be pilfered for the uses of a kennel!" She concluded with a chuckle that might have been uttered by a scald-crow. I was pondering a diplomatic reply, when the quiet evening was rent by a shrill challenge from the woolly dog. "Thy sentinel am I!" he vociferated, barking himself backwards into the hall, in proper strategic retreat upon his base. A slow foot ascended the steps, and the twilight in the hall deepened as a man's figure appeared in the doorway; a middle-aged man, with his hat in one hand, and in the other a thick stick, with which he was making respectfully intimidating demonstrations to the woolly dog. "Who are you?" called out Mrs. Knox from her big chair.