A little old lady, dressed in shabby black silk, looked up from the corner of the sofa next the window, when Peter entered the drawing-room at Hewelscourt, after the usual delay, apologies, and barking of dogs which attends the morning caller at the front door of the average country house.

Peter, who had expected to see Mrs. Hewel and Sarah, repented himself for a moment that he had come at all when he beheld this stranger, who regarded him with a pair of dark eyes that seemed several times too large for her small, wrinkled face, and who merely nodded her head in response to his awkward salutation.

“Ah!” said the old lady, rather as though she were talking to herself, “so this is the returned hero, no doubt.  How do you do?  The rejoicing over your home-coming kept me awake half the night.”

Peter was rather offended at this free-and-easy method of address.  It seemed to him that, since the old lady evidently knew who he was, she might be a little more respectful in her manner.

“The festivities were all over soon after eleven,” he said stiffly.  “But perhaps you are accustomed to early hours?”

“Perhaps I am,” said the old lady; she seemed more amused than abashed by Peter’s dignity of demeanour.  “At any rate, I like my beauty sleep to be undisturbed; more especially in the country, where there are so many noises to wake one up from four o’clock in the morning onwards.”

“I have always understood,” said Peter, who inherited his father’s respect for platitudes, “that the country was much quieter than the town.  I suppose you live in a town?”

“I suppose I do,” said the old lady.

Peter put up his eyeglass indignantly, to quell this disrespectful old woman with a frigid look, modelled upon the expression of his board-ship hero.

The door opened suddenly.

He dropped his eyeglass with a start.  But it was only Mrs. Hewel who entered, and not Sarah, after all.

Her embonpoint, and consequently her breathlessness, had much increased since Peter saw her last.

“Oh, Peter,” she cried, “this is nice of you to come over and see us so soon.  We were wondering if you would.  Dear, dear, how thankful your mother must be!  I know what I was with the boys—­and decorated and all—­though poor Tom and Willie got nothing; but, as the papers said, it wasn’t always those who deserved it most—­still, I’m glad you got something, anyway; it’s little enough, I’m sure, to make up for—­” Then she turned nervously to the old lady.  “Aunt Elizabeth, this is Sir Peter Crewys, who came home last night.”

“I have already made acquaintance with Sir Peter, since you left me to entertain him,” said the old lady, nodding affably.

“Lady Tintern arrived unexpectedly by the afternoon train yesterday,” explained Mrs. Hewel, in her flustered manner, turning once more to Peter.  “She has only been here twice before.  It was such a surprise to Sarah to find her here when she came back.”