“Yes, I fancy it is,” replied Sir Stephen, quite easily.  “Now you speak of it, I remember my agent said there was some hitch at first; but he must have got over it in some way or other.  He bought it of a farmer.”  Stafford drew a breath of relief.  “This is the Italian garden; the tennis and croquet lawns are below this terrace—­there’s not time to go down.  But you haven’t seen half of it yet.  There’s the breakfast-bell.  Don’t trouble to change:  I like you in those flannels.”  He laid his hand on Stafford’s broad, straight shoulder.  “You have the knack of wearing your clothes as if they grew on you, Staff.”

Stafford laughed.

“I ought to hand that compliment on to Measom, sir,” he said; “he’s the responsible person and deserves the credit, if there is any.”  He looked at his father’s upright, well-dressed and graceful figure.  “But he would hand it back to you, I think, sir.”

There was a pause, then Stafford said: 

“Do you know any of your neighbours—­any of the people round about?”

“No; I was never here until yesterday, excepting for an hour or two.  But we shall know them, I suppose; they’ll call in a little while, and we will ask them to dinner, and so on.  There should be some nice people—­Ah, Mr. Howard, we’ve stolen a march on you!”

“I’m not surprised, sir,” said Howard, as he came up in his slow and languid way.  “I am sorry to say that Stafford has an extremely bad habit of getting up at unreasonable hours.  I wait until I am dragged out of bed by a fellow-creature or the pangs of hunger.  Of course you have been bathing, Staff?  Early rising and an inordinate love of cold water—­externally—­at all seasons are two of his ineradicable vices, Sir Stephen.  I have done my best to cure them, but—­alas!”

They went in to breakfast, which was served in a room with bay windows opening on to the terrace overlooking the lake.  Exactly opposite Stafford’s chair was the little opening on the other side from which he and the girl from Heron Hall had gazed at the villa.  He looked at it and grew silent.

A large dispatch-box stood beside Sir Stephen’s plate.  He did not open it, but sent it to his room.

“I never read my letters before breakfast,” he remarked.  “They spoil one’s digestion.  I’m afraid the mail’s heavy this morning, judging by the weight of the box; so that I shall be busy.  You two gentlemen will, I trust, amuse yourselves in your own way.  Mr. Howard, the groom will await your orders.”

“Thanks,” said Howard; “but I propose to sit quite still on a chair which I have carried out on to the terrace.  I have had enough of driving to last me for a week;” and he shuddered.

Stafford laughed.

“Howard’s easily disposed of, sir,” he said.  “Give him a hammock or an easy-chair in the shade, and he can always amuse himself by going to sleep.”

“True; and if half the men I know spent their time in a similar fashion this would be a brighter and a better world.  What you will do, my dear Stafford, I know by bitter experience.  He will go and wade through a river or ride at a break-neck pace down some of those hills.  Stafford is never happy unless he is trying to lay up rheumatism for his old age or endeavouring to break his limbs.”