Adrienne

SHE stood at the dining-room window looking out upon a snowy world. The cypresses and firs at the end of the lawn were bowed down with their weight of purity. There was great light, great stillness in the atmosphere. And there was majestic grandeur in the groups of snow-laden trees, and in the white hills that held tiny villages in their folds.

The girl's eyes were dreamy, and a trifle wistful. Her dark curly hair was unfashionably twisted up into a thick knot at the back of her small, well-shaped head. She had straight determined features, and a slim dainty figure. Her dark wine-coloured jumper and skirt suited her.

As she stood there, one hand tightly clenched a letter; and no one who saw her still attitude could have imagined what a tumult was sweeping over her soul. Behind her was the breakfast table. The silver tea-kettle was boiling on its stand. A packet of letters lay on the corner of the table. There was a fragrant scent of bacon and kidneys from a chafing dish. A bright-eyed Cairn terrier stood near the blazing fire, occasionally giving quick glances at his mistress, but rejoicing too much in the warmth and comfort of his position to join her at the window.

And then the door suddenly burst open and in came a short square elderly man, with a slight grey moustache and a tanned weather-beaten face. He looked the essence of fussy energy, and of health.

He snapped his fingers at the terrier, and spoke to the girl:

"What ho, Adrienne! How's yourself? No hunting for me! If I weren't such a busy man, I should be hipped by such an outlook. Drake has been telling me the stable pipes have burst. I must go and have a look at them after breakfast. Now where on earth did I put that new-fangled stuff for mending pipes, and grates, and holes of every description? Didn't I give it to you to keep safely in your store cupboard?"

Adrienne slipped her letter in her pocket, and turned a smiling face towards her uncle, General Chesterton.

"Now, Uncle Tom, you know very well you did not. Your patent foods and plasters and patchers-up are always in the gun-room. Since I kept your sticking-plaster in my store-room, and you turned my whole cupboard topsy-turvy one day when I was out, I have refused to keep anything more. Come and have breakfast, and don't touch your fat packet of letters till we have had some food."

"Where's Derrick? What a little martinet you try to be! But that packet is mostly bills, I bet! Here's the lazybones! What do you think of our white world? I told you snow was in the air last night."

The new-comer had made his entry very quietly, and took his seat at the table without a word.

His appearance was hardly that of a naval man, though he was an Admiral with a good many medals. He was a tall, handsome man, with an intellectual brow, clean-shaven face and dreamy eyes like his niece's.

The brothers were devoted to each other and had lived together since their retirement, in their old home, a small manor-house in Devon. Adrienne had come to them three years ago, fresh from her boarding school at Folkestone.

She bullied them, she coaxed them, and she mothered them by turns. All three were on the happiest possible terms. General Chesterton's chief hobby was horses and hunting; but he was only able to afford to keep one hunter, and depended very often on mounts from his nearest neighbour, Sir Godfrey Sutherland.

Admiral Chesterton was a keen fisherman and a great reader. He was gentle, neat, and very particular about conventions and propriety. He had a small room of his own which he called his study, and when he was not reading or manufacturing flies, he was compiling the family pedigree. He was as tidy as the tidiest spinster, a marked contrast to his brother the General, who never put a thing in its place, and was perpetually mislaying and losing what he wanted, in a hurry.

The General was a great talker and very impulsive. If the Admiral was a gentle southerly breeze throughout the house, the General was a blustering noisy sou'wester. Nobody was in doubt as to whether he was in or out. He rarely sat down before dinnertime.

But in the evening the two brothers played chess together. Neither of them cared for cards, and if laughed at by their friends for such an old-fashioned taste, would reply:

"We have always played chess, and always will." And it was the only time that General Chesterton was comparatively quiet.

Adrienne sat behind her tea and coffee, and poured out for her uncles.

"I'm rather glad of a day indoors," observed the Admiral, as he stirred his coffee in a leisurely way; "our box from Mudie's arrived last night, did it not, Adrienne?"

"Yes. I hadn't time to open it. Drake will take it to your study. I will tell him. I'm not going to have a day in the house, oh dear no!"

"Where are you off to?" questioned the General. "If you go to the village, get me a pound of French nails, will you? That trellis kept me awake last night, tapping like a ghost against my window-ledge. There's always something annoying me at night. Two nights ago it was the donkey braying. And I can't do without my sleep. Extraordinary difficult thing to make yourself sleepy. I pounded my pillow, and turned it a dozen times, and then I rattled off all the limericks I could remember, and by that time I felt electricity all through me—my hair positively bristled. I struck a light and smoked two cigarettes, and I tried right side, left side and back in rotation one after each other. Still I couldn't droop an eyelid!"

"I should think not," said Adrienne, with a merry laugh; "don't you know that you shouldn't be strenuous in bed?"

"But was I? I was doing all in my power to put myself to sleep. Working at it till I got in a perfect fever of heat!"

The Admiral was looking through the letters, and sorting out his from amongst them.

"An invitation to dine at the Hall next Thursday."

"I'm bothered if I'll go," said the General hastily; "for I'm hunting that day, and won't turn out again at night—not if I know it!"

"But if this frost goes on, you won't be hunting," said Adrienne.

She quitted the room, leaving her uncles discussing the weather prospects, and made her way to the kitchen. Her housekeeping duties were not very heavy, for Mrs. Page, the old cook-housekeeper, had been nearly twenty years in the family; but Adrienne as a matter of form discussed the meals with her every day, and she took charge of the store-room, and supplied all necessary stores when needed.

Half an hour later she stood in the hall, clad in her long fur coat. A soft grey felt hat was crammed down on her curly head, and she had strong brogue shoes and cloth gaiters on her feet.

"Now I'm off," she sang out, as she passed the smoking-room door; "and I'm going through the village, so I'll get your nails, Uncle Tom."

The General came out, pipe in mouth, and accompanied her to the hall door; Bruce, the Cairn terrier, was at her heels.

"Ugh!" he shuddered as he looked out at the soft snow which the gardener was sweeping away from the drive as fast as he could. "My old bones don't like snow. We oughtn't to have it down here in the west."

"Oh, I love it!" cried Adrienne, starting out gaily with bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks.

But when she was out of sight of the house, she pulled a letter out of her pocket, and began to read it over for the second time.

The contents brought a grave look upon her face.

And then, with a little sigh, she folded it up, and put it back into her pocket.

The snow was crisp under her feet. As she walked along the road bordered with fir woods on either side, it was a fairy-like scene. From every branch the snow drooped in icicles which were sparkling in the sun. Along a snowy glade under the pines she saw a rabbit scuttling. Bruce scampered after it, and she had to wait till he rejoined her. Then, suddenly, round a corner appeared a young man, accompanied by a huge Alsatian wolf-hound.

"Hullo, Adrienne!"

"Hullo, Godfrey! You're the very person I want."

The young fellow looked pleased. "I'm on my way to Strake's Farm. But it will wait."