themselves were not alive others might be, and Annette had done nothing since her return to them to break that illusion so rudely shaken by her departure. In their opinion, Annette had now "settled down," and each aunt was secretly of opinion that her niece's existence was supported by copious draughts from the deep wells of her own wisdom and experience. But perhaps Annette had other incentives for clinging to Riff. Sometimes as we go through life we become conscious of a mysterious instinctive attraction towards certain homely people, and certain kindly places, for which we cannot account, to which we can only yield. They seem to belong to us, to have a special significance for us. When Annette first saw Janey and Roger she felt that she had known them all her life, that they had long been part of her existence. When first she walked with them beside the Rieben she seemed to recognize every turn of the stream. The deep primrosed lanes welcomed her back to them. Had she wandered down them in some previous existence? When she gathered her first posy of lady's-smock in the long water meadow near the mill, the little milk-white flowers said, "Why have you been away from us so long?" And when, a few days later, she first stood with Janey in the April sunshine on the wide terrace of Hulver, the stately shuttered house had seemed to envelop her with its ancient peace, and to whisper to her, "I am home." Annette reached the bridge by the mill, and looked across the tranquil water to the village clustering round the church, and the old red-gabled Manor house standing among its hollies. Her heart throbbed suddenly. Surely the angel with the sword would not drive her away again! CHAPTER XXIII "Thou vacant house, moated about by peace." STEPHEN PHILLIPS. Mr. Stirling and his nephew were standing in the long picture gallery of Hulver, looking at the portrait of Roger Manvers of Dunwich, who inherited Hulver in Charles the Second's time. "His grandmother, Anne de la Pole, that pinched-looking old woman in the ruff, would never have left it to her daughter's son if she had had anyone else to leave it to," said Mr. Stirling. "She built Hulver in the shape of an E in honour of her kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. That prim little picture below her portrait shows the house when it was new. It must have looked very much the same then as it does now, except that the hollies were all trimmed to fantastic shapes. Look at the birds and domes and crowns." "I like them better as they are now," said his nephew, a weak-looking youth with projecting teeth, his spectacled eyes turning from the picture to the renowned avenue of hollies, now stooping and splitting in extreme old age.