Tony's consideration in securing Cherrington Cottage to his mother could only have been bettered if he had made some provision for a sum of money to maintain it, or, for that matter, herself; delicious as the exterior of it undoubtedly was, the walls were not edible. The sudden stoppage in the payment of her jointure put the dowager in the humiliating position of having to ask her brother, Lord Chatfield, to pay the weekly bills, and it was with the intention of dealing with this matter that Dorothy had gone down much against her will to the scene that was consecrated to her greatest triumph and her greatest failure. Perhaps the nerves of the usually so genial Uncle Chat had been too much wrought upon by the outbreak of war. As deputy lieutenant of the county he had been harried by a series of telegrams from the War Office, each of which had contradicted its predecessor. He had had to lend not merely all his own horses to England, but to arrange to lend most of his neighbors', some of whom were not quite such willing lenders as his lordship. His eldest son, Paignton, was already at the front in the North Devon Dragoons, and his second son was assisting an elderly gentleman who had lived in obscurity since Tel-el-Kebir--where he had been jabbed in the liver by a dervish--to command, drill, and generally produce for their country's need the two hundred and ten rustics that at present constituted the Seventh Service Battalion of the King's Own Devon Light Infantry. His daughters, Lady Maud and Lady Mary, had given him no rest till they were allowed to do something or other; though before he understood what exactly this was the war had lasted many months longer than the greatest pessimist had believed possible. His sister, Lady Jane, in despair of finding anything else to do, was collecting mittens for the soldiers, a hobby which made the ground floor of Chatfield Hall look like a congested wool-warehouse in the city.