Lady Frances had been held, partly by her years and partly by the prejudices which fixedly inhabit the old, from exploring far this northwest of her son's adoption. Among people not socially en rapport with her, she had long ago decided she was too advanced in years to commence to mingle. She had found few enough intimates in the cities of this colonial dominion; she anticipated there would be in the country no "nice people" at all. She had at last consented to come out to the farm, less because she had been assured that now suitable and comfortable accommodation awaited her, than because her heart contained a vague hunger. When she had started on her journey, she had thought it was her son she wanted to see. But now, as she sat reflectively in the coach that--after travelling what had seemed to her an interminable stretch of country--was at last approaching the place Toddburn, Lady Frances Ware discovered that the one she most looked forward to meeting was, not her son, but her young daughter-in-law. This was not wholly because of regard for Daisy herself--although the young wife, with her frank and clean girlishness, had won the warmest possible place in the old lady's affections--but because Daisy was linked with a hope and a dream that now abode daily with the mother of the last male of the ancient lineage of Ware. Daisy had, by letting the bronco take its own gait, occupied a little too much time on the trip to the village--a thing her alert and practical former self would never have done--and, as she rose to the crest of the last hill outside Toddburn, she saw the passenger train just leaving the station, from which she was still separated by about half a mile. This meant that Lady Frances, if she had come--which was certain, for she was always punctual--was waiting alone at the little depot. Daisy sat up straight, rousing the little bronco to its best speed with voice and driving-reins. "My dear, it's quite immaterial," was the response of the old gentlewoman to her apology, as the two embraced--not in the little depot waiting-room, but out on the end of the platform, where Daisy had found Lady Frances, standing by her luggage and looking about her. The old lady had on a simple black travelling dress and a light wrap, rather Victorian in pattern. Neither glasses nor any substitute were in view. Lady Frances could see "her way about" quite easily without them, and never carried anything as a concession to mode, or for pose or show. "I have been enjoying myself immensely during the interval," she said, as the two proceeded to the sloping end of the platform, at the foot of which stood the buggy; "this is an enormous country--simply enormous, my dear. No, you needn't help me in." Putting one gloved hand on the brace of the buggy-top, Lady Frances, from the slight eminence of the platform-end, reached handily the iron step of the buggy and raised herself halely to the cushioned seat.