A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the first time that she was beautiful. “Remember,” she said quietly, “if you are fond of them you will come again,” and disappeared within the house. The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates, where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-murder. “Excuse me,” he asked of a sudden, “but why did you do that, Sir?” “The child yonder.” “Our young gentleman in blue?” “Of course.” “He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?” “Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?” “Yes, Sir. And did you ’appen to see them upstairs too?” “At the upper window? Yes.” “Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?” “A little before that. Why d’you want to know?” He paused a little. “Only to make sure that—that they had seen the car, Sir, because with children running about, though I’m sure you’re driving particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here are the cross-roads. You can’t miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir, but that isn’t _our_ custom, not with——” “I beg your pardon,” I said, and thrust away the British silver. “Oh, it’s quite right with the rest of ’em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir.” He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery. Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with motor cars had small right to live—much less to “go about talking like carriage folk.” They were not a pleasant-mannered community. When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser. Hawkin’s Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my difficulty to a neighbour—a deep-rooted tree of that soil—and he gave me a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.