“Why on earth don’t you, my dear?” murmured her husband, who had strenuously opposed the proposed flight to this clubless and remote region, and who knew very well that the love of change had much to do with his wife’s determination to move; and the belief that she would be a great person down here, while in town it had been forced upon her that she was only a very small one indeed. His wife looked at him reproachfully. “My dear, you know as well as possible that we must economise for the sake of the children,” she said, with a sigh and a glance at her cousin, as if sure that he would approve her sentiments. It was fashionable to economise, so Mrs. Graham-Shute was always talking about it; and there it ended. Her husband had suffered from this idiosyncrasy, and he went on in an aggrieved tone: “Why can’t you begin at Bayswater, and save moving expenses? Everything’s cheaper in town than here, and you’ve something to talk about besides the health of the pigs.” But Maude went breezily on: “Ah, but in town you’re tempted to buy things; my feminine heart can’t resist a bargain. Now, here,” she ended triumphantly, “you can’t spend money, because there’s nothing to buy!” Here John Bradfield struck into the conversation. “Isn’t there, though? There are bargains to be had here as well as in town, as I have found to my cost.” Maude smiled at this remark, having only frowned at her husband’s. And, of course, she remained unconvinced. Mrs. Graham-Shute spent her own and her daughters’ afternoon in making a list of the houses they had seen, with their several defects and good qualities. The former consisted, not in imperfect drainage and “stuffy” bed-rooms, but in “reception rooms” too small for the entertainments by which she proposed to dazzle the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Donald, left to his own devices, tried hard to contrive an interview with Chris, who had, during the last day or two, avoided him with a persistency which nettled him exceedingly. During the last conversation he had had with her, she had reproached him with following her about at the suggestion of his mother. While greatly annoyed and offended by her perspicacity, it had not made him less anxious for the flirtation he had promised himself with such an “awfully pretty girl.” This being the last day of his stay at Wyngham Lodge, he felt that he must come to such an understanding with her as would pave the way for a welcome when he and his family should return to Wyngham for a permanent residence.