that land of dreams.

* * * * *

Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever, but well compensated
for all my loneliness by this strange new life that had opened itself to
me, and never ceasing to marvel and rejoice--when one morning I received
a note from Lady Cray, who wanted some stables built at Cray, their
country-seat in Hertfordshire, and begged I would go there for the day
and night.

I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere matter of business, of
course; as a friend, Lady Cray seemed to have dropped me long ago, "like
a 'ot potato," blissfully unconscious that it was I who had dropped her.

But she received me as a friend--an old friend. All my shyness and
snobbery fell from me at the mere touch of her hand.

I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and had immediately set
about my work, which took several hours, so that I got to the house only
just in time to dress for dinner.

When I came into the drawing-room there were several people there, and
Lady Cray presented me to a young lady, the vicar's daughter, whom I was
to take in to dinner.

I was very much impressed on being told by her that the company
assembled in the drawing-room included no less a person than Sir Edwin
Landseer. Many years ago I had copied an engraving of one of his
pictures for Mimsey Seraskier. It was called "The Challenge," or "Coming