having to trust themselves on the margin of rotten ice.  Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, and staggered to where the ladder lay.  He had already lifted it when the rattle of a chain and a furious outburst of growls burst on his hearing, and he was dashed to the ground by a mass of white and tawny fur.  A sturdy young yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his first piece of actice guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a matter of considerable difficulty.  When he had at last succeeded in both efforts he was just by a hair’s-breadth too late to be of any use.  The Sheep had definitely disappeared under the ice-rift.

Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the year with Rupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of being idolised by a devoted uncle.  But for twelve months of the year Rupert’s most inseparable and valued companion is a sturdy tawny and white yard-dog.

THE OVERSIGHT

“It’s like a Chinese puzzle,” said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at a scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets of notepaper on her writing-table.  Most of the names had a pencil mark running through them.

“What is like a Chinese puzzle?” asked Lena Luddleford briskly; she rather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor problems of life.

“Getting people suitably sorted together.  Sir Richard likes me to have a house party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand as to whom I should invite; all he asks is that it should be a peaceable party, with no friction or unpleasantness.”

“That seems reasonable enough,” said Lena.

“Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary.  Sir Richard has his literary work to think of; you can’t expect a man to concentrate on the tribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he’s got social feuds blazing under his own roof.”

“But why should they blaze?  Why should there be feuds at all within the compass of a house party?”

“Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?” echoed Lady Prowche; “the point is that they always do.  We have been unlucky; persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on things.  We have always got people of violently opposed views under one roof, and the result has been not merely unpleasantness but explosion.”

“Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political opinion and religious views?” asked Lena.

“No, not that.  The broader lines of political or religious difference don’t matter.  You can have Church of England and Unitarian and Buddhist under the same roof without courting disaster; the only Buddhist I ever had down here quarrelled with everybody, but that was on account of his naturally squabblesome temperament; it had nothing to do with his religion.  And I’ve always found that people can differ profoundly about politics and meet on perfectly good terms at breakfast.  Now, Miss Larbor Jones, who was staying here last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort of wingless angel, while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same time, privately considers him to be—­an antelope, let us say.”