"Well, I must go. Good-by, Baby. I think, if you are very good, you might have your dinner with mamma. Din-din--with--mum--mum--mum"--a kiss between every nonsense syllable. "You can bring him down, nurse. I shall have only the ladies with me at luncheon." There were still further leave-takings, and then Christabel went downstairs. On her way past her husband's study she saw the door standing ajar. "Are you there, Leonard, and alone?" "Yes." She went in. He was sitting at his desk--his cheque-book open, tradesmen's accounts spread out before him--all the signs and tokens of business-like occupation. It was not often that Mr. Tregonell spent a morning in his study. When he did, it meant a general settlement of accounts, and usually resulted in a surly frame of mind, which lasted, more or less, for the rest of the day. "Did you know that Mr. Hamleigh had gone woodcock shooting?" "Naturally, since it was I who suggested that he should have a shy at the birds before he left," answered Leonard, without looking up. He was filling in a cheque, with his head bent over the table. "How strange for him to go alone, in his weak health, and with a fatiguing journey before him." "What's the fatigue of lolling in a railway carriage? Confound it, you've made me spoil the cheque!" muttered Leonard, tearing the oblong slip of coloured paper across and across, impatiently. "How your hand shakes! Have you been writing all the morning?" "Yes--all the morning," absently, turning over the leaves of his cheque-book. "But you have been out--your boots are all over mud." "Yes, I meant to have an hour or so at the birds. I got as far as Willapark, and then remembered that Clayton wanted the money for the tradesmen to-day. One must stick to one's pay-day, don't you know, when one has made a rule." "Of course. Oh, there are the new Quarterlies!" said Christabel, seeing a package on the table. "Do you mind my opening them here?" "No; as long as you hold your tongue, and don't disturb me when I'm at figures." This was not a very gracious permission to remain, but Christabel seated herself quietly by the fire, and began to explore the two treasuries of wisdom which the day's post had brought. Leonard's study looked into the stable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, with long ranges of doors and windows, saddle rooms, harness rooms, loose boxes, coachmen's and groom's quarters--a little colony complete in itself. From his open window the Squire could give his orders, interrogate his coachman as to his consumption of forage, have an ailing horse paraded before him, bully an underling, and bestow praise or blame all round, as it suited his humour. Here, too, were the kennels of the dogs, whose company Mr. Tregonell liked a little better than that of his fellow-men.