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left the gallery.
    At last Lord Craigdalloch made his peroration, which wasquite inaudible, and sat down. The man who was reading letters sprang to his feet as though fearful of interruption (a danger, however, which hardly seemed pressing as the house was empty except for the now prostrated Craigdalloch and their sleeping compeer on the sofa), and spoke rapidly and audibly:
    ‘M’lords, I have been asked to reply to the noble lord and I wish at the outset to express the thanks of the Government to the noble lord for so readily agreeing last May to postpone his Question, in view of the position as it then stood. At that time there was some uncertainty.…’
    Here Lady Craigdalloch leant over the rail of the Peeresses’ Gallery and by a series of signals gave the Monteaths to understand that she was ready to go and would meet them outside.
    When, after losing their way once or twice, they at last reached the Princes Chamber, they found her waiting there for them. A tall commanding woman with white hair and an Edwardian aspect, she had, in the days when big pale faces and Grecian features were admired to the exclusion of everything else, been considered a beauty. She had still considerable remains of looks and the unmistakable manner of one who has been courted in youth and flattered in middle-age.
    ‘Dear Sally,’ she said, embracing her niece rather voluminously, ‘I knew you would like to hear your uncle’s speech. It went off very well, didn’t it? Always such an anxiety to the dear thing. How well you are looking, Sally. Where did you get so wonderfully sunburnt?’
    ‘At Elizabeth Arden’s, Aunt Madge.’
    Lady Craigdalloch inwardly supposed that this must be one of Walter’s Bright Young but Undesirable friends that she was always hearing so much about from Sally’s mother. The creature probably has a villa in the South of France – so much the better, those sort of people are not wanted in England, where they merely annoy their elders and breed Socialism. Inany case, she never understood this craving of the younger generation for a hideous brick-coloured complexion. If she had guessed for a moment that Sally stained hers every morning with stuff out of a bottle she would have thought her niece frankly mad.
    ‘Craig will join us in a moment. He wishes us to begin tea without him.’ She led the way down long, draughty, Gothic corridors to the tea-room, which, in contrast to other portions of the House, presented a scene of tempestuous gaiety. Several of the peers seated at the rather
intime
little tables were considerably under seventy, and one or two had relations and female friends with them whom they were entertaining with jokes and witticisms of the most abandoned description. Two bishops and some of their girlfriends were fairly rollicking over a pot of tea, while the old man with crutches was being jocularly accused by the Lord Chancellor of having wiped his beard on the tablecloth, an allegation which he could hardly refute, having been caught by that dignitary in the very act. Altogether there was a spirit of goodwill and friendly banter which seemed more or less lacking elsewhere in the building.
    While Walter and Sally were eating the fascinating mixed biscuits and strong tea which the nation, through the medium of Richard Coeur de Maison Lyons, provides at a slight profit for the sustenance of its administrators and their guests, Lady Craigdalloch explained in what their duties at Dalloch Castle would consist.
    ‘You will find everything running very smoothly, I think. The servants have all been there for years and you’ll have no trouble at all with them. You will, of course, give any orders for the comfort of the guests, such as, for instance, how many picnic luncheons will be required for the guns, and so on. Then, if you would meet new arrivals in the hall and show them their rooms, that sort of thing makes people feel so much more at home than if they arrive and find no host or