Lutterton Castle was a good six miles off. The house stood well, and even imposingly, on a high wooded knoll that overlooked the undulating park, and the open valley at its feet. It was a great rambling building with a central tower and four smaller ones at each corner. When Mr. Esterworth was at home, which was almost always, it was his vanity to keep a red flag flying from the centre tower as though he had been royalty. All the reception-rooms and more than half the bedrooms were permanently shuttered up, and there was a portly and very dignified housekeeper, who rattled her keys at her chatelaine, and went through all the unused apartments daily, followed by a meek phalanx of housemaids, to see that all the rooms were well-aired and well kept in order, so that at any minute they might be fit for occupation. Five or six times during the hunting season the large rooms were all thrown open, and there was a hunt breakfast held in the principal dining-hall; but, with that exception, Mr. Esterworth rarely entertained at all. He occupied three rooms opening out of each other in the small western tower. They consisted of a bedroom, a dressing-room, and a small and rather inconvenient study, where the huntsman, whips, and other official personages connected with the hunt were received at all hours of the day and night. The room was consequently pervaded by a faint odour of stables and tobacco; there were usually three or four dogs upon the hearthrug, and it was a rare thing to find Mr. Esterworth in it unaccompanied by some personage in breeches and gaiters, wearing a blue spotted neckcloth and a horseshoe pin. Such an individual was receiving an audience at the moment of Miss Miller's arrival, and shuffled awkwardly and hurriedly out of the room by one door as she entered it by another. "All right, William," calls the M.F.H. after his departing satellite. "Look in again to-night. I shall have her fired, I think, and throw her up till December. Hallo! Pussy, how are you?" All the four dogs rose from the hearthrug and wagged their tails solemnly in respectful greeting to her. Beatrice had a pat and a word for each, and a kiss for her uncle, before she sat down on the chair he pulled forward for her. "What brings you, Pussy? What are you riding?" "Kitty; they have taken her round to the stable. I thought I'd have lunch with you, uncle Tom." "Very well; you won't get anything but a mutton-chop." "I don't ask for anything better." Beatrice felt that her heart was beating. She had taken a desperate resolution during her six miles' solitary ride; she had determined to take her uncle into her confidence. He had always been indulgent and kind to her; perhaps he would not view her sin in so heinous a light as her mother would; and who knows? perhaps he would help her. "Uncle Tom, I'm in dreadful trouble, and I want to tell you about it," she began, trembling. "I'm very sorry, Pussy; what is it?"