Katty was one of the many women to whom the daily picture-paper supplied a long-felt, if unconscious, want. It gave her just the amount of news, and the kind of news, that her busy mind, absorbed in other things, could assimilate comfortably. She was no reader, though sometimes she would manage to gallop through some book that all the world was talking about. But newspapers had always bored her. Still, she had become very fond of the paper she now held in her hand. It only cost a halfpenny a day, and Katty liked small, sensible economies. That liking of hers was one of the links which bound her to Godfrey Pavely, but unlike Godfrey, Katty did not care for money for money's sake. She only liked money for what money could buy. And sometimes, when she was in a cheerful, mischievous mood, she would tell herself, with a smile, that if ever her Castle in Spain turned out to have been built on a solid foundation--if ever, that is, she became Godfrey Pavely's wife, she would know how to spend the money he had garnered so carefully. She felt pretty sure, deep in her heart, that should such an unlikely thing come to pass, she would know how to "manage" Godfrey, and that, if surprised, he would not really mind what she did. She always got good value out of everything she acquired, and that would remain true if, instead of spending pence, she was ever able to spend pounds. A little before eleven, just as Katty was beginning to think it was time for her to finish dressing, she heard the gate of her domain open, and the voice of little Alice Pavely rise up through the still, frosty air, mingling with the deeper, gentler tones of Laura. It was an odd thing, considering that the two women were at any rate in theory intimate friends, that Laura very, very seldom came to Rosedean. In fact Katty could not remember a single time when Laura had come in the morning, an uninvited, unexpected guest. So suddenly poor Katty felt a little chill of apprehension; she got up from her chair, and waited.... The front door was opened at once. Then came Harber's hurrying footfalls on the staircase--and, simultaneously, the garden door at the back of the house swung to. Laura had evidently sent her little girl out of doors, into the garden. What could she be coming to say? Quickly Katty examined her conscience. No, there was nothing that Laura could possibly have found out. As to that half day spent with Godfrey in York, Laura was surely the last woman to mind--and if she did mind, she was quite the last woman to say anything about it! There came a knock at the door: then Harber's voice, "Mrs. Pavely wants to know, ma'am, if she can come up and speak to you, just for a minute." "Ask Mrs. Pavely to come up," said Katty, pleasantly. A minute later, Laura walked forward into the room. It was the first time she had been in Katty's bedroom since Rosedean had been first furnished.