“If you prefer,” said Harry’s voice, very loud, from the hall, “I can phone you a cab to come to the door.” “Oh, no. It’s not necessary,” said Miss Fulton, and she came up to Bertha and gave her the slender fingers to hold. “Good-bye. Thank you so much.” “Good-bye,” said Bertha. Miss Fulton held her hand a moment longer. “Your lovely pear tree!” she murmured. And then she was gone, with Eddie following, like the black cat following the grey cat. “I’ll shut up shop,” said Harry, extravagantly cool and collected. “Your lovely pear tree—pear tree—pear tree!” Bertha simply ran over to the long windows. “Oh, what is going to happen now?” she cried. But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still. The Wind Blows Suddenly—dreadfully—she wakes up. What has happened? Something dreadful has happened. No—nothing has happened. It is only the wind shaking the house, rattling the windows, banging a piece of iron on the roof and making her bed tremble. Leaves flutter past the window, up and away; down in the avenue a whole newspaper wags in the air like a lost kite and falls, spiked on a pine tree. It is cold. Summer is over—it is autumn—everything is ugly. The carts rattle by, swinging from side to side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the straining vegetable baskets—their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in the wind. A white dog on three legs yelps past the gate. It is all over! What is? Oh, everything! And she begins to plait her hair with shaking fingers, not daring to look in the glass. Mother is talking to grandmother in the hall. “A perfect idiot! Imagine leaving anything out on the line in weather like this. . . . Now my best little Teneriffe-work teacloth is simply in ribbons. _What_ is that extraordinary smell? It’s the porridge burning. Oh, heavens—this wind!” She has a music lesson at ten o’clock. At the thought the minor movement of the Beethoven begins to play in her head, the trills long and terrible like little rolling drums. . . . Marie Swainson runs into the garden next door to pick the “chrysanths” before they are ruined. Her skirt flies up above her waist; she tries to beat it down, to tuck it between her legs while she stoops, but it is no use—up it flies. All the trees and bushes beat about her. She picks as quickly as she can but she is quite distracted. She doesn’t mind what she does—she pulls the plants up by the roots and bends and twists them, stamping her foot and swearing. “For heaven’s sake keep the front door shut! Go round to the back,” shouts someone. And then she hears Bogey: “Mother, you’re wanted on the telephone. Telephone, Mother. It’s the butcher.” How hideous life is—revolting, simply revolting. . . . And now her hat-elastic’s snapped. Of course it would. She’ll wear her old tam and slip out the back way. But Mother has seen.