Also Mrs. Holt’s quick woman’s eye did not fail to notice her blazing rings when she pulled off her gloves, her valuable little wristlet-watch, which she consulted nervously from time to time, her plain but expensive dress, that rustled when she moved. Ah! she could see--although she tried not to show it--that Mrs. Wynne had changed. Her mind was possessed now by riches, and he, poor young man, would never be able to keep her contented, now she had had the taste of money, and knew what it was to be a great lady; and Mrs. Holt shook her head wistfully, as she made a red-currant tart. Meanwhile Madeline carried baby down to the gate and looked out for Laurence, but no Laurence came, and baby was surprisingly heavy. Then she went round the garden. Oh, how small it looked somehow, and there was horrid green weed on the pool! Then she made her way into their sitting-room, with its old glass book-case, brass-faced clock, samplers hanging on the walls, and plain red tiles underfoot. A dainty summer breeze was playing with the white curtains through the open lattice, and the great hollyhocks and sunflowers were rearing their heads and endeavouring to peep in from the garden. There was Laurence’s pipe; there, in a corner, stood the stick which had betrayed him; and there was his writing, just as he had left it--ruled sermon paper. No, not a letter! What was it all about? And she took it up and glanced over it. It was some rubbish, headed, “Middle-aged Matrons.” How absurd! Then, on the spur of the moment, she called in Mrs. Holt, and consigned Master Harry to her motherly arms, whilst she sat down to indite a letter to Laurence, with his own favourite pen and at his own table. “DEAR LAURENCE” (she said), “I came down on purpose to see you, and am so dreadfully disappointed to find you are out, for I dare not wait, and I had so much to say to you. I am delighted to find baby so grown, and to hear such good accounts of yourself. I believe you were at Belgrave Square yesterday. Laurence, how could you be so rash? Fortunately, no one suspected who you were, or that you were anything to Miss West. I feel quite another person than Miss West now that I am down in the country, and looking out of the window in front of me into this dear old garden and the far-away wooded hills. “I feel as if money was nothing in comparison to youth and domesticity and peace, and that I could be happy here for ever with you; but I know that, once back in my own boudoir this very selfsame evening, I shall change my mind again, and look upon rustic life as intolerable--a living death, a being buried alive without a fashionable funeral. Money and money’s worth I must attain; love I have. I wish to command both--love and money. We know what love is without money, don’t we? I shall never, never change to you, Laurence, you may rely on that.