incursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It means you've got some one coming

to lunch or dinner whose garden is alleged to be 'the envy of the
neighbourhood.'"

"Yes," exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, "and what happens
then?"

"Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian Nights.
Your backyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate and almond trees,

lemon groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of
azaleas, marble-basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond-

herons step daintily amid exotic water-lilies, while golden
pheasants strut about on alabaster terraces. The whole effect

rather suggests the idea that Providence and Norman Wilkinson have
dropped mutual jealousies and collaborated to produce a background

for an open-air Russian Ballet; in point of fact, it is merely the
background to your luncheon party. If there is any kick left in

Gwenda Pottingdon, or whoever your E.O.N. guest of the moment may
be, just mention carelessly that your climbing putella is the only

one in England, since the one at Chatsworth died last winter. There
isn't such a thing as a climbing putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and

her kind don't usually know one flower from another without
prompting."

"Quick," said Elinor, "the address of the Association."
Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a simple yet

elegant meal, excellently cooked and daintily served, but the
piquant sauce of her own conversation was notablylacking. She had

prepared a long succession of eulogistic comments on the wonders of
her town garden, with its unrivalled effects of horticultural

magnificence, and, behold, her theme was shut in on every side by
the luxuriant hedge of Siberian berberis that formed a glowing

background to Elinor's bewildering fragment of fairyland. The
pomegranate and lemon trees, the terraced fountain, where golden

carp slithered and wriggled amid the roots of gorgeous-hued irises,
the banked masses of exotic blooms, the pagoda-like enclosure, where

Japanese sand-badgers disported themselves, all these contributed to
take away Gwenda's appetite and moderate her desire to talk about

gardening matters.
"I can't say I admire the climbing putella," she observed shortly,

"and anyway it's not the only one of its kind in England; I happen
to know of one in Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion;

I suppose people haven't the time for it nowadays."
Altogether it was quite one of Elinor's most successful luncheon

parties.
It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should have

burst in on the household four days later at lunch-time and made her
way unbidden into the dining-room.

"I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a water-colour
sketch accepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; it's to be exhibited

at their summer exhibition at the Hackney Gallery. It will be the
sensation of the moment in the art world--Hullo, what on earth has

happened to your garden? It's not there!"
"Suffragettes," said Elinor promptly; "didn't you hear about it?

They broke in and made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes.
I was so heart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place

cleared out; I shall have it laid out again on rather more elaborate
lines."

"That," she said to the Baroness afterwards "is what I call having
an emergency brain."

THE SHEEP
The enemy had declared "no trumps." Rupert played out his ace and

king of clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the
Sheep, whom the Fates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the

third round with the queen of clubs, and, having no other club to
lead back, opened another suit. The enemy won the remainder of the

tricks--and the rubber.
"I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd trick to win

the rubber," said Rupert.
"But I hadn't another club to lead you," exclaimed the Sheep, with

his ready, defensive smile.
"It didn't occur to you to throw your queen away on my king and

leave me with the command of the suit," said Rupert, with polite
bitterness.

"I suppose I ought to have--I wasn't certain what to do. I'm
awfully sorry," said the Sheep.

Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his
occupation in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a

subsequent hand he would have blundered just as certainly, and he
would have been just as irritatingly apologetic.

Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and fumbling
with his cards. Many men who have good brains for business do not

possess the rudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert would not have
judged and condemned his prospectivebrother-in-law on the evidence

of his bridge play alone. The tragic part of it was that he smiled
and fumbled through life just as fatuously and apologetically as he

did at the card-table. And behind the defensive smile and the well-
worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable but

quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the pasture
probably imagines that in an emergency it could become terrible as

an army with banners--one has only to watch how they stamp their
feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comes

into view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human
sheep see themselves in imaginationtaking great parts in the

world's more impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in
moments of crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong,

simple, but, in spite of their natural modesty, always slightly
spectacular.

"Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse should
Kathleen choose this man for her future husband?" was the question

that Rupert asked himself ruefully. There was young Malcolm
Athling, as nice-looking, decent, level-headed a fellow as any one

could wish to meet, obviously her very devotedadmirer, and yet she
must throw herself away on this pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment

of self-approving ineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen's own
affair Rupert would have shrugged his shoulders and philosophically

hoped that she might make the best of an undeniably bad bargain.
But Rupert had no heir; his own boy lay underground somewhere on the

Indian frontier, in goodly company. And the property would pass in
due curse to Kathleen and Kathleen's husband. The Sheep would live

there in the beloved old home, rearing up other little Sheep,
fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied like himself, to dwell

in the land and possess it. It was not a soothing prospect.
Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience Rupert

and the Sheep made their way homeward after a day's mixed shooting.
The Sheep's cartridge bag was nearly empty, but his game bag showed

no signs of over-crowding. The birds he had shot at had seemed for
the most part as impervious to death or damage as the hero of a

melodrama. And for each failure to drop his bird he had some
explanation or apology ready on his lips. Now he was striding along

in front of his host, chattering happily over his shoulder, but
obviously on the look-out for some belatedrabbit or woodpigeon that

might haply be secured as an eleventh-hour addition to his bag. As
they passed the edge of a small copse a large bird rose from the

ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering an easy shot to
the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged forth with both barrels,

and gave an exultant cry.
"Horray! I've shot a thundering big hawk!"

"To be exact, you've shot a honey-buzzard. That is the hen bird of
one of the few pairs of honey-buzzards breeding in the United

Kingdom. We've kept them under the strictest preservation for the
last four years; every game-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty

miles round has been warned and bribed and threatened to respect
their sanctity, and egg-snatching agents have been carefully guarded

against during the breeding season. Hundreds of lovers of rare
birds have delighted in seeing their snap-shotted portraits in

Country Life, and now you've reduced the hen bird to a lump of
broken feathers."