great hearth round which we sat. For all that, he had given his
name to the panelled room. Our bedrooms were as old,
low-pitched and full of beams. The stairs also were a great
glory. In fact, the house was in its way unique. A discreet
decorator, too, had made it comfortable. Save in the Cromwell
room, electric light was everywhere. And in the morning
chambermaids led you by crooked passages over uneven doors to
white bathrooms. It was all right.

Hither we had come to spend Christmas and the New Year. By day
we walked for miles over the Cotswolds, or took the car and
looked up friends who were keeping Christmas in the country, not
too manv miles away. The Dales of Stoy had been kind, and before
the frost came I had had two days' hunting with the Heythrop.
And to-morrow was New Year's Eve. Four miles the other side of
the old market town of Steeple Abbas, and twenty-one miles from
Pallow, stood Bill Manor, where the Hathaways lived. This good
man and his wife Milly were among our greatest friends, and they
had wanted us to spend Christmas with them. Though we had not
done so, we had motored over several times and they had lunched
with us at Fallow only the day before. And for New Year's Eve
the Hathaways had arranged a small but very special ball, to
which, of course, we were bidden. Indeed, I think the ball was
more for us than for anyone else. Anyway, Jim and Milly said so.
The idea was that we should come over in the car in time for
dinner with the house-party, the ball would begin about ten, and
when it was over, we should return to Fallow in the ordinary way.
Nobody had anticipated such heavy weather.

And now it was a question whether we should be able to go. Also,