Helen's brief visit to the country proved to be a rather severe ordeal. It began with a lonely five-mile drive from the station in an antiquated brougham. And, on arrival at Wyndham about six o'clock on Saturday evening, a general state of tension was not made less when she found that John in obedience to doctor's orders was keeping his bed, and that his mother had mounted guard over him.
Lady Elizabeth was a dragon "of the old school"; at least, that was the effect she contrived to make upon Helen in the course of their first evening together. A masterful dame of seventy, wonderfully active in spite of growing infirmity, it was clear to the guest, by the time she had spent ten minutes with her fiancé's mother, that she would have a head full of feudal ideas to contend with. For the mistress of Wyndham, beyond a doubt, was a survival of another age. And to the modern mind of an American it was an age of considerably less enlightenment.
John, for one thing, was her ewe lamb. And she
