Hector's house was like himself, simple and unpretending. There was an absence of soft couches and cushions, and of all the little knick-knacks that women gather round them. Miss Ross sighed for her comfortable little Terrace home, when she encountered the blasts of air through the long draughty passages and big windows that flanked every room. She had never lived in this house; for Hector's father had taken possession of it when she and her sister were living in London; and he had kept it, till his many debts had forced him to sell it. But she valiantly tried to do her best, and she was so anxious and deferential in her efforts to please her nephew's guests, that they could not but respond to her nervous and timid advances. That evening Di asked Rowena to come into her bedroom the last thing at night. When she did so Di planted her in an easy-chair before the fire and began to talk. "Isn't it queer that I should be down here so soon again? Why did he ask me, I wonder? What an odd fish he is! Did you hear his butler come to him for orders for to-morrow morning. 'How many for church, sir?' he asked. 'Will the wagonette be sufficient?' And then he looked round the hall and counted us all. 'Ten,' he said, and the widow looked up sharply: 'How do you know we all mean to go?' she said. And he laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets in his Colonial way: 'Oh, everybody goes to church in my house,' he said. 'And I give notice to you all that there'll be no billiards and bridge going to-morrow. I'm going to keep Sunday as it used to be kept when I was a kid.'" "'Of course, in Scotland, we do things still that we don't do in England,'" I put in, and then he rounded on me: "'Why should Scotland march into heaven first? Can't you English keep to your old traditions and Faith?' I enjoy watching the faces of his guests as he talks." "And how is it with you?" Rowena asked affectionately. "Are you happier?" Di shrugged her shoulders. "I hate town more and more, and have left my flat already. I won't go back there. I'm going to Vi for a little hunting. For the sake of that I'm going to endure a course of snubs from her; and then I don't know what I shall do. Try to be good like you, perhaps, and see how it pays." "Oh, Di dear!" "Well, don't you want another convert? You made Mrs. Burke very happy. Will you make me?" "I have no power to do it; and you know I haven't." Di laughed. "I don't want a sermon to-night; but we'll have some jaws together before I leave. What do you think of Mrs. McClintock? She's very sweet on Mr. Ross. Can hear nobody speak in the room but him; she watches him and listens for his every word. I know her sort well." "I felt sorry for her," said Rowena frankly. "She lost her husband just this time last year. She told me she had come up here to get it off her mind. It is her first Christmas without him, and she dreaded being alone in her empty house."