"Of course you do; everybody does really," answered Mrs. Greene inattentively. Roger laughed and took her arm. "No they don't," he said. "That's nonsense. They like it mostly. They feel safe living in a sort of rabbit warren. They'd be terrified if you set them down in a little cottage in an open space." "I suppose that's true," answered Mrs. Greene, "but it seems incredible to me. Aren't the woods lovely, Roger?" "They're perfectly lovely. You know I feel I ought to be asking you all sorts of things but instead I'm just enjoying myself." "So am I. I'm very fond of this path; I often come down it." No faintest tinge of sadness broke their even happiness though both were thinking of the many hundreds of times that Mrs. Greene had walked along the grass path, over the fields and through the woods, and of the very few more that would be added to the total. "It's quite dense here, isn't it?" said Mrs. Greene, "and yet, you know, in a minute we'll be in the meadow with the house in front of us." "I know; it always comes on you suddenly." As Roger spoke, a turn in the path brought them out of the wood into full view of the house. The sun streaming over Lynton turned its austere grey facade to a mottled richness, and the leaves of the Virginia creeper that was only allowed to climb at the south-east corner licked at the stone like little fiery tongues. The tall chimneys, the tall narrow windows, gave to the sober beauty of the house an airy effect of grace and lightness that did not mar its steadfast quality. Lynton was undoubtedly sound. Mrs. Greene and Roger had stopped at the edge of the wood. For a moment the woman who was about to leave Lynton and the man who was about to enter it stood together on a little hill and gazed greedily at it over the intervening box hedge. Then they walked on, through an opening in the hedge, over the lawn, and in at a side door. "I want to find Hamilton this afternoon," said Mrs. Greene after lunch. "He'll be in one of two places. He always is on Sunday afternoons; either in the wall-garden or the peach-house." "Doesn't he ever take a day off." "No, not really. Mrs. Hamilton is very bad-tempered; gardeners' wives are always shrews you'll find, and he never stays indoors if he can help it." "I wonder if they're shrews because their husbands are so placid, or if the husbands have to be placid because the wives are shrews," mused Roger. "I can tell you." Mrs. Greene spoke decisively. "All good gardeners have easy-going temperaments, so they have a fatal attraction for domineering women.-" "I see. Hamilton is a good man, isn't he?" "Excellent; patient and enterprising, the two best qualities in a gardener. If you're not tired we'll go up to the garden now and look for him." "Surely it's you who should be tired after such a long walk?" "Oh, no, I'm in quite good training for walking," answered Mrs. Greene serenely.