Diana Tempest

nded to arrive. His heart sank a little as he took Archie by the hand and set out to walk. The distance was nothing, for the station had been made specially for the convenience of the Tempests, and lay within a few hundred yards of the castle gates. But the omen was a bad one. Would his mission fail?

How unchanged everything was! He seemed to remember every stone upon the road. There was the turn up to the village, and the low tower of the church peering through the haze of the April trees. They passed through the old Italian gates--there was a new woman at the lodge to open them--and entered the park. Archie drew in his breath. He had never seen deer at large before. He supposed his uncle must keep a private zoological gardens on a large scale, and his awe of him increased.

'Are the lions and the tigers loose too?' he inquired, with grave interest, but without anxiety, as his eyes followed a little band of fallow-deer skimming across the turf.

'There are no lions and tigers, Archie,' sai