At one side stretched a high-walled garden with the tops of a few stunted trees just showing their heads, and close at the back of the place one could see a collection of farm buildings, very like the mansion architecturally, only greyer and more weathered. A fairly steep roof, crow-stepped gables, rough-cast walls, and rather small windows seemed to my untutored eye to be the chief features of the whole stone gathering. "Somebody very primitive obviously lives here," I said to myself as I pulled the bell. Out it came bodily in my hand, so I carefully pushed it back, and tried a large brass knocker instead, a massive affair that looked as though it had once been part of a shipwreck. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and then the door opened and I enjoyed a fresh sensation. Instead of the prehistoric being I had expected, a girl stood in the open door looking at me out of a quite remarkably bright pair of eyes--disconcertingly bright in fact. She was dressed in the very smartest and most-up-to-date country kit; short tweed skirt of a pleasing greenish hue, stockings to match, brown brogued shoes, and a blouse that might have come from Paris. Her hair was dressed as fashionably as the rest of her, and her face was of precisely the kind I had least expected to see, rather thin with neatly chiselled features and delicate eye-brows, and an entirely sophisticated expression. There was no doubt she was decidedly pretty, and quite delightfully fresh and trim looking. But her eyes were her best feature. As I looked straight into them for an instant I could scarcely bring myself to play the part I had arranged. They seemed as though they would be a little difficult to deceive. However, thank Heaven I have lived down most of the virtues that embarrass the young. I had lied before, been found out, and lived through it; so I clicked my heels together, bowed, and enquired, "Is Master Rindall in?" (My accent wasn't really quite as bad as that, but I should have to invent fresh vowels to illustrate what it actually sounded like.) I had expected some slight symptoms of alarm, but she answered with perfect composure and in a voice that matched the hair and blouse, "Yes, he is. Will you come in?" I bowed again and entered the mansion of Mr. Rendall. VII AT THE MANSION HOUSE As I followed the girl through the hall, a man's voice asked, "Is that O'Brien?" "No," she said, "it's some one to see you, father."