The cheerful coal fire winked on the foolish satisfied faces with their ridiculous monotony of outline and color. A crunching on the gravel made everybody glance out of the window. Mrs. Turle seemed a little frightened and annoyed. She looked deprecatingly at Cousin Maria Furlonger, from the “Warren,” who was so very exclusive, who moved in such a good set, and habitually went up to help Mrs. Sugden when she gave a charitable entertainment. “It’s Mrs. Clutton, my dear. You didn’t want to meet her, did you?” “Oh, never mind, Aunt Sophy. I needn’t know her if I meet her again.” “I wish she wouldn’t drop in so unceremoniously,” poor Mrs. Turle said in a hurried whisper. “Mrs. Sugden was here the other day. She begged me to let her out of the back door because Mrs. Clutton was coming in at the front. Of course a woman in her position couldn’t possibly meet anybody like that. “My dear,” she swept her ample skirts across the room, “this is a pleasure. Nancy and I were wondering what had happened to you. We’ve seen nothing of you for at least three days. You’re a little pale. The weather is trying, and makes one look so fagged and worn.” It was a trick of Aunt Sophy’s to compassionate everyone and comment on the fragility of their appearance. Pamela, when she grew to know her better, was never sure whether it was a feline trick or a sympathetic one. The new-comer was dark and lean. She was a young woman, whose face looked as if it had weathered storms. She was carelessly dressed in perfectly cut clothes, rather worn. She carried a damp, loosely-tied parcel, which she handed to Nancy. “Here are your pinks and white phloxes. Put the roots in soon.” “If Evergreen has time to-morrow----” “Don’t wait for him; he’ll kill them. Gardeners have a knack of sticking their spades through the things they dislike. Do it yourself. I am so glad I can’t afford a gardener--to give me a plant for the table when he chooses.” Her eye fell on a melancholy petunia. “Have you been to any more sales, dear?” asked Mrs. Turle. “Have you added to your interesting collection of nice old things?” “Oh, yes!” Mrs. Clutton’s voice became enthusiastic. “I went to such a delightful sale at Carrsland. I bought a little oak table. A dealer ran it up to thirty shillings--the wretch! He passed me on the road! I was walking, as usual; he was cycling. I instantly smelt him out as a dealer, and I was half inclined to tip him off the bicycle with the point of my umbrella, gag him, bind him to a tree until the sale was over. I wish I had; it would have been so deliciously simple.” There was an awkward silence; then Nancy said, in her gently gushing way: “I wish you’d ride a bicycle. It’s such fun.” Maria Furlonger, of the “Warren,” added politely: “Yes. You should ride; it’s so good for the brain; and I’ve heard you write--or something of the sort.” “Bicycling’s very bad for one’s logic; you can’t imagine a logician on a bicycle. I don’t write; my husband does.”