The flame of the two candles on the chimneypiece blew wildly to the left; and the third one, in the flat silver candlestick, which she had brought back from the bedroom and had put down on her tea-table, began to gutter so extremely that a solid buttress of white grease formed itself against its side. Many loose pieces of paper were swept off their resting-places and were blown across the floor.

“I should think you’d aired your room enough already,” remarked Wolf, pressing his knuckles against the volume of Sir Thomas so that it should not flutter as some of the books were doing.

“It smells of peat-bogs!” cried Christie excitedly, holding her head out of the window.

“It must be a south wind,” he muttered, rising to his feet and moving one of the flickering candles so as to adjust its guttering. “It must be blowing across from High Stoy; so it can’t be peat you smell. I expect it’s Lunt mud,” he added morosely.