“That certainly sounds the most likely and natural ending,” said Mr. Cardan. “If of two possible alternatives one is in harmony with our highest aspirations and the other is, humanly speaking, absolutely pointless and completely wasteful, then, you may be sure, Nature will choose the second.” At half-past ten Miss Elver complained that she did not feel very well. Mr. Cardan sighed and shook his head. “These miraculous fishes,” he said. They went back to the hotel. “Luckily,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle that evening while Irene was brushing her hair, “luckily I never had any babies. They spoil the figure so frightfully.” “Still,” Irene ventured to object, “still ... they must be rather fun, all the same.” Mrs. Aldwinkle pretexted a headache and sent her to bed almost at once. At half-past two in the morning Irene was startled out of her sleep by a most melancholy groaning and crying from the room next to hers. “Oo, Oo! Ow!” It was Grace Elver’s voice. Irene jumped out of bed and ran to see what was the matter. She found Miss Elver lying in a tumbled bed, writhing with pain. “What is it?” she asked. Miss Elver made no articulate answer. “Oo, Oo,” she kept repeating, turning her head from side to side as though in the hope of escaping from the obsessing pain. Irene ran to her aunt’s bedroom, knocked at the door and, getting no answer, walked in. “Aunt Lilian,” she called in the darkness, and louder, “Aunt Lilian!” There was still no sound. Irene felt for the switch and turned on the light. Mrs. Aldwinkle’s bed was empty. Irene stood there for a moment looking dubiously at the bed, wondering, speculating. From down the corridor came the repeated “Oo, Oo!” of Grace Elver’s inarticulate pain. Roused by the sound from her momentary inaction, Irene turned, stepped across the passage and began knocking at Mr. Cardan’s door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII Selections from Francis Chelifer In the sporting calendar the most interesting events are booked for the autumnal months. There is no hunting in the spring. And even in Italy there is a brief close season for song-birds that lasts from the coming of the nightingales to the departure of the last swallow. The fun, the real fun, starts only in the autumn. Grouse-shooting, partridge-shooting—these are the gay preliminaries. But the great day is the First of October, when the massacre of the gaudy pheasant begins. Crack! crack!—the double barrels make music in the fading woods. And a little later the harmonious dogs join in and the hoof, as the Latin poet so aptly puts it, the hoof shakes the putrid field with quadrupedantical sound. Winter is made gay with the noise of hunting.