Lady Margaret Saunders ruled Brent-on-Wold and its adjacent small estates, as completely and autocratically as Sên Ya Tin ruled in a coign of Ho-nan, and she ruled far less amiably, far more erratically. Sên Ya Tin was tyrannical but easy-going. There was nothing easy-going about Lady Margaret Saunders. She hectored the village shopkeepers, of whom her patronage was small; she alternately cajoled and abused the rector and almost invariably prescribed his texts; she had driven two curates away and sent one to the milder rule of the county asylum. She controlled the relieving officer, the cottage hospital, and the tennis club—although she’d never had a racquet in her hand. She directed the procedure of the cricket and football clubs and dictated the number of the buns and the strength of the tea with which they regaled visiting teams, though she had neither sons nor grandsons to bowl or to kick the national balls. She _was_ the local flower-show, though the glass at “the big house” was not much and the grounds were more occupied with broccoli and potatoes than with roses and carnations. She had “early closing” changed from Wednesdays to Thursdays. And not even the cottage women who “went out to oblige” ever defied her. No one defied Lady Margaret Saunders. She was not pleasing to look at and less pleasing to converse with. She had a German face, which was a libel on her ancestors, and an enormous Jewish nose, which was a crueler libel on the Hebrew people. All her forebears were Yorkshire. She sniffed in public and nagged in private. No one liked her. No one disputed or challenged her acid authority. She ruled. Why? Because it was her nature to rule. Dominance was her being, and her dominance was as direct and relentless as Niagara. Her force was Titanic, and her bad manners were irresistible. But she was not only obeyed, she was courted. And Lady Margaret was not only courted, but reverenced. The “gentry” was her creature, disliked her to a woman, and feared her to a man. Lady Brewster was the woman most nearly admitted to her intimacy. General Saunders had left a leg in the Kyber, and his other leg’s foot as well. He spent his days now in a wheel chair. His wife called him “Polly,” and paid very little attention to him—in public. They were childless. Lady Margaret Saunders called on Mrs. Sên, and then the “gentry” rushed to do the same.