The sleigh dropped over a rise into a shallow fold of hills, with a collection of structures on a slope, and a number of solid, small grey stone dwellings. He glanced subconsciously at the stack of Shadrach Furnace, and saw that it was in blast--a colourless, lively flame, with a thin, white smoke like crumpled muslin, playing about its base. The metallic ring of a smithy rose at a crossing of roads, and, from the cast house, drifted the refrain of a German song. He turned in by the comparatively long, low facade of the house where the Jannans were living. A negro led the horse and sleigh back to a stable; and, briskly sounding the polished iron doorknocker, he let himself into the dining room, a chamber with a wide, pot-hung fireplace and plain mahogany consul tables with wood chairs brightly painted with archaic flowers and scrolls in gold. Standing at the far side of the room, delicately outlined against a low, deeply embrasured window, was Susan Brundon. A slow tide of colour rose to her ordinarily pale cheeks, corresponding with a formless gladness permeating his own being. She wore ruffled lavender with a clear lace pelerine caught at her breast by a knot of straw-coloured ribbon and sprig of rose geranium. "Mr. Penny," she said, with a little gasp of surprise; but her gaze was unwavering, candid. "Why not?" he replied lightly. "I have a small interest in Shadrach. You are surprising--so far from that absorbing Academy." "It's my eyes again," she explained. "I am obliged to rest. There is a very good assistant at the school; and Mary sweetly thought the country would do me good." "It is really miraculous," Mary Jannan stated, entering from the kitchen; "she'll almost never. Weren't we lucky?" She was a small woman with smooth brown hair and an air of quiet capability. "And it's splendid to see you," she continued to Jasper Penny. "Don't for a minute think you'll get off before to-morrow, perhaps not then. Graham is out, chop-chopping wood. Actually--the suave Graham." She indicated a high row of pegs for Jasper Penny's furs. "Everything is terribly primitive. Most of the furniture was so sound that we couldn't bring ourselves to discard it all, however old-fashioned. Little by little." Graham Jannan entered, a tall, thin young man with crisp, pale yellow hair and a clean shaven, sanguine countenance with challenging light blue eyes. He greeted the older man with a firm, cold hand clasp. "I suppose you've come out to discover what I have learned about iron. Well, I know now that a sow is not necessarily a lady, and that some blooms have no bouquet. Good rum has, though, after sleighing."