"And just the right length for a walk!" "Exactly a mile and a quarter." "Really?" "Exactly! We always called it a mile; but the last time he was home on leave Freddy measured it with his new cyclometer. 'Now, mother,' he said, 'please to remember it's a mile and a quarter, and, don't let's have any dispute about it in future?'" "It's so nice to know--to an inch or two!" "Well, Freddy has a very accurate mind. He can't bear anything slipshod in the way of a statement. Now, you are sure, after your walk, you do not feel the fire too much? Then move into this chair. You have really taken the least comfortable in the room. Now, isn't that better?" Mrs Macmichel said that it was delightfully cosy. She was inwardly shivering; the tips of her fingers felt like ice. She pulled off her loose gloves, and held a pair of white hands blazing with jewels to the flame. She must force herself to talk, and to keep the poor woman off the topic of her son; but she, who was considered ready-tongued and ready-witted, sat dumb, she had not a word to say. "There is so much difference in chairs," she said, at length. The banality did not affect Mrs Jones to laughter, as the speaker had a fear it might have done. She seized eagerly on the remark. "Isn't there? Some are straight in the back, and some slope too much for comfort; some are too high in the seat for short legs, and some quite ridiculously low." "But this is perfect." "I am so glad you find it so! It is Freddy's. It was one he bought when he was in barracks. But he sent it to me. It was much too comfortable to be anywhere but in his own home, he said. Isn't it delightful that young men are so much attached to their homes, nowadays?" It was indeed delightful, Mrs Macmichel answered; and added with an effort the original remark that home was a delightful place. She supposed it was, the other lady agreed. "I never go away from mine, my health does not allow me," she said; "and so, perhaps, I can hardly judge." She looked round the rather dismal, rather shabby room with a something critical in her gaze. Perhaps the presence of the fashionably-dressed woman seated there--a person so evidently out of harmony with her surroundings--helped her to see the familiar dowdiness with other eyes. She gave a quick sigh as she looked, then turned to her visitor with her nervous smile-- "It is a mercy Freddy does not see the old fashion, the shabbiness. He only sees--home," she said. Always Freddy! Poor Freddy, who would never see home again! Searching wildly in her, at this crisis, stagnant mind for anything to turn the poor woman from her subject, Mrs Macmichel remembered the Parish Room. Here should be a mine of conversational wealth. She would work it for all it was worth.