The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1917-10-05
CHAPTER III.

Louise aWOke the next morning
filled with a curious sense of buoyant
expectancy. The sunshine was pouring
into the room, Frightening up its most
somber corners. 1t lay across the quilt
of her bed, and seemed to bring out the
perfume of lavender from the pillow
on which her head reposed.
Aline, hearing her mistress stir,
FASTENED at once to her bedside.
ut is half-past nine, madam, and
your breakfast is here. The old i'm
beetle from the kitchen has just
brought it up"
Louise looked approvingly at the
breakfast tray, with the homemade
bread and deep-yellow butter, the
brown eggs and clear honey. The
smell of the coffee was aromatic. She
breathed little sigh, of content.
"How delicious everything looks !"
she exclaimed.
"The homemade things are well
enough in their way, madam" Aline
agreed, "but I have never known a
household so strange and disagreeable.
That M. Jennings, who calls himself
the butler-he is a person unspeak-
able, SAVAGE"
Louise's eyes twinkled.
81 don't think they are fond of wom-
en- in this household, Aline," she re-
marked. "Tell me, have you seen
Charles?"
Charles has gone to the nearest
blacksmith's forge to get something
made for the car, madam Aline re-
piled. "He asked me to say that he
was afraid he would not be ready to
start before midday"
"That does not matter" Louise de-
c!ared gazing eagerly out of the case
ment window. Immediately below was
a grass-grown orchard which. stretched
upward, at ,precipitous angle, toward
belt of freshly plowed field beyond, a
little chain of rocky hills, sheer over
head. The trees were pink and white
with blossom; the petals lay about
upon the ground like drifted snow
fakes. Here and there yellow jon
luils were growing among the long
grass. A watt of perfume stole into
the room through the window which
she had opened.
Fill my bath quickly, Aline," Louise
ordered. Il must go out. / want to see
whether it is really as beautiful as it
looks"
Aline dressed her mistress in 81
Hence. Then, suddenly, little excla-
NATION escaped her. She swung round
toward her mistress, and for once there
vas animation in her face.
"But, madam" she exclaimed, II
have remembered! The name Strange
wey. Yesterday morning you read It
out while you took your coffee. You
spoke of the good fortune of some
farmer in the north of England to
whom some relative in Australia had
left a great fortune-hundreds and
thousands of pounds. The name was
Strangewey, the same as that. I re-
member it now"
She pointed once more to the family
tree. Louise sat for a moment with |
parted lips.
you are quite right, Aline. re-
member it all perfectly now. wonder |
whether it could possibly be either of |
these two menu"
Aline shook her head doubtfully.
sit would be unbelievable, madam"
she decided. "Could any sane human
creatures live here, with no company
but the sheep and the cows, if they
had money-money to live i'm the
cities, to buy pleasures, to be happy?
Unbelievable, madam!"
Louise remained standing before the
window. She was watching the bios
som-laden boughs Of one of the apple
trees bending and swaying in the fresh
morning breeze-watching the restless
shadows which came and went upon
the grass beneath.
"That is just your point of view,
Aline," she murmured; ''but happiness
well, you would not understand.
They are strange men, these two"
Louise found her way without diff
Guilty across cobbled yard, through a
postern gate set in red-brick wall,
into the orchard. At the farther end
she came to gate, against which she
ested for a moment, leaning her arms
upon the topmost bar. Before her was
the little belt Of plowed earth, the
fresh, rungent odor of which was a
new thing to her; little way to the
right, the rolling moorland, starred
with clumps Of gorse; in front, across
the field on the other side Of the gray
stone wall, the rock-strewn hills. The
sky--unusually blue 1t seemed to her,
md dotted all over with little masses
q tieecy, white clouds-seemed some 7