A woman, forty years of age, massively built, and of unusual stature, she stands in a deep shadow draped with heavy folds of violet cloth, her robe lashed at the breast with a chain of barbaric gold. She is crowned with an unruly mane of harsh red hair. Her eyes are pale blue, of startling brilliancy, her features of rugged, almost savage, strength. So was she in her life, and only her brother knew the deeds of mercy which she never avowed, the fierce love which found its expression in wrath, the burning passions only revealed in harshness, the mighty angel hid in the rough prison of her body. She had built that granite cottage on the Tol Pedn cliffs, where the Atlantic storms thundered against her walls; and there she ruled with an iron discipline, keeping her chambers relentlessly bare and clean. There on the sixth night of the Terror she entertained her brother's guests at a dinner of Spartan severity, given in honour of Brand's new Government. "Sir," she said to Lancaster, "you take the head of the table. You represent her Majesty to-night, so my Lord Bishop of London sits on your right as Chancellor of the Empire, and his Grace of Clydesdale on your left as Foreign Minister." So she placed the guests in order of their dignity. General Lord Fortescue, V.C., as Minister for War, the Earl of Rothschild as First Lord of the Admiralty, the Lords Commissioners for Canada, Australasia, Africa, the Secretaries for India and the Treasury, and the President of the Board of Trade. "Jack O'Brien," she said to the last, "you and I will share the foot of the table." Mr. O'Brien, President of the United Trades Unions, whose presence was resented by the rest, sat down at the humblest place in obvious triumph. "But surely, Mistress Brand," he said, "where's the master?" "My lords and gentlemen," said Sarah Brand, "my brother asks for no place at the table of the Imperial Council. He will wait upon you afterwards. Bishop, will you say grace?" A murmur of astonishment went round the table, and the Ministers, doubtful until then, lest they be lifting a Dictator to the throne, saw clearly that the master did them honour. So was the absence of the host--late for dinner--construed not as an insult to his guests, but as the greatest compliment he could pay them. The Ministers had been in council all day long, now they talked anything but politics, nor, after our Lady's health was drunk, would they consent to the absence of Mistress Brand. "We have, indeed, no business left to discuss," said the Bishop, cheerfully. "Everything is settled." "There's only one thing you've all forgotten," answered the hostess, smoothing her turbulent red hair, as she glanced from face to face. "You left out Ulster." "My dear Miss Brand," said Clydesdale, "we've laid that ghost."