"Very easy," said Mr. Orgreave, resuming his work with a great expulsion of breath. Hilda thought: "Why did I say that?" And, to cover her constraint, she cried out: "Oh, what a lovely book!" A small book, bound in full purple calf, lay half hidden in a nest of fine tissue paper on the dressing-table. "Yes, isn't it?" said Mrs. Orgreave. "Tom brought it in to show me, before he went this afternoon. It's a birthday present for Edie. He's had it specially bound. I must write myself, and ask Edie to come over and meet you. I'm sure you'd like her. She's a dear girl. I think Tom's very fortunate." "No, you don't," Osmond Orgreave contradicted her, with a great rustling of paper. "You think Edie's very fortunate." Hilda looked round, and caught the architect's smile. "I think they're both fortunate," said Mrs. Orgreave simply. She had almost no sense of humour. "I'm sure she's a real good girl, and clever too." "Clever enough to get on the right side of her future mother-in-law, anyway!" growled Mr. Orgreave. "Anyone might think Osmond didn't like the girl," said Mrs. Orgreave, "from the way he talks. And yet he adores her! And it's no use him pretending he doesn't!" "I only adore you!" said Osmond. "You needn't try to turn it off!" his wife murmured, beaming on Hilda. Tears came strangely into Hilda's eyes, and she turned again to the dressing-table. And through a blur, she saw all the objects ranged in a long row on the white cloth that covered the rosewood; and she thought: "All this is beautiful." And she saw the pale blinds drawn down behind the dressing-table, and the valance at the top, and the draped curtains; and herself darkly in the glass. And she could feel the vista of the large, calm, comfortable room behind her, and could hear the coals falling together in the grate, and the rustling of the architect's paper, and Mrs. Orgreave's slight cough. And, in her mind, she could see all the other rooms in the spacious house, and the dim, misted garden beyond. She thought: "All this house is beautiful. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever known, or ever shall know. I'm happy here!" And then her imagination followed each of the children. She imagined Marian, the eldest, and her babies, in London; and Charlie, also in London, practising medicine; and Tom and Janet and Alicia at the party at Hillport; and Jimmie and Johnnie seeing life at Hanbridge; while the parents remained in tranquillity in their bedroom. All these visions were beautiful; even the vision of Jimmie and Johnnie flourishing billiard-cues and glasses and pipes in the smoky atmosphere of a club--even this was beautiful; it was as simply touching as the other visions.... And she was at home with the parents, and so extremely intimate with them that she could nearly conceive herself a genuine member of the house. She was in bliss. Her immediate past dropped away from her like an illusion, and she became almost the old Hilda: she was almost born again into innocence.