It was a goodly November day; soft gray clouds, sun atween, hinting of rain to come. They passed the eight-acre vegetable field,—inter-cropped, potatoes, already dug, with winter green-stuff, fat white-hearted savoys, inturned broccoli, curly-leaved kale and knee-high Brussels sprouts; they passed the “warren”—fenced dip of chalk pitted land on which Peter had turned down half a hundred Belgian Hare does to mate with the “original inhabitants”; they skirted two stubbles, and a new-sown patch of pedigreed wheat; hummed through the browning spinney—and made Glen Cottage by five minutes to nine. The home of Francis and Beatrice showed no signs of intensive cultivation; meadow-land, over which Peter’s merinos and Peter’s Jerseys browsed and grazed at will, ran down to its very walls. Three times, the indomitable Beatrice had engaged a gardener, but each time Peter, hungry for men, enticed him away. “Private gardens,” said our Mr. Jameson, “are out of date. Besides, as your landlord, your greengrocer, your carrier, your poulterer and your dairyman—I forbid it.” Beatrice christened him the “Octopus of Arlsfield”; but eventually submitted. She was standing at the cottage-gate as the Octopus and his wife drove up. Fifteen months of matrimony had not altered her essential girlishness: but the face under the close-fitting toque of ermine seemed less pale than the day she and Peter first met; the gray eyes, though still thoughtful, held more of laughter. “Dally won’t be a minute,” she smiled at them. “You’ve just got time to turn the car.” Peter, with a jest about not having enough “gasoline,” obeyed; throttled down his engine; gave a glance at clock on dashboard as the two women kissed good-morning. “Confound Dally,” he said after a while, “it’s nearly ten past already.” Francis, followed by Prout, who carried an enormous basket and a long thin parcel wrapped in brown paper, limped out of the house. He wore his usual brown overcoat, his usual cream buckskin gloves, his inevitable old Etonian tie. “What on earth have you got there?” demanded his cousin. “Food, fizz and flags,” chuckled Francis. “Shove ’em in the tonneau, Prout. If I know London, we’ll have about as much chance of getting anything to eat. . . .” He superintended the disposal of these treasures; handed Beatrice into the car—-and remembered he had forgotten her muff. By the time Prout had retrieved this, tucked in the young people, and closed the door on them, it was twenty past nine. “Shall we do it?” asked Patricia. “Do it?”—Peter chuckled scornfully—“you watch!” He opened throttle as he spoke; fingered lever gently from neutral to first, first to second, second to top. Horse-chestnuts popped from tire-covers as the Crossley gathered way. Arlsfield Park, a blurr of tree-trunks at side and interlaced branches overhead, spun behind them. They missed Sid Dyson’s timber-tug by an ant’s breadth; hooted past the Colonel’s crested gate-pillars; switchbacked downhill towards Henley.