Rose could frankly say that the dress was perfect. She had never seen Pauline look better. But she could not help hoping that she had changed her stockings as she watched her run lightly down the stairs to the hansom. She felt very downhearted as she closed the door and went back to the sitting-room. The room was sweet with the primroses and white violets they had sent her from Woodcote the day before. Rose felt herself pitying the flowers for being taken from the woods and sent to wither in that stifling air. For it was stifling this afternoon. Even when she threw open the window, no breath of coolness came to fan her burning face. The sky was cloudless, but yellow with smoke, and a dull haze hung over the river. Rose thought of Woodcote, where the great chestnuts were already in full leaf, and the gorse common beyond the wood was a sheet of gold. An intense longing took hold of her to go home, if only for an hour or two. She looked at her watch and saw that it was not yet one o’clock. There was plenty of time to go to Woodcote and get back before Pauline returned. And how joyfully surprised her aunt would be! She wondered she had not thought of it before. An hour later she was in the train, speeding countrywards. She sat close to the window, looking eagerly at the green fields and the budding trees. She no longer felt disappointed about the concert. She was glad Madame Verney had invited Pauline to go with her. Just outside the station for Woodcote the train came to a standstill. Rose from the window had a full view of the white road down the hillside, and as she looked along it she caught sight of an approaching carriage. It was a moment before she recognised the brown horses and the broad figure of old Harris, her aunt’s coachman. But directly afterwards she saw her aunt and Rhoda Sampson, and Tom seated opposite to them. The road passed close to the high embankment on which the train was standing. If they had looked up, they must have seen her at the window. But they were too intent on their conversation. Rose heard Tom laugh at something Rhoda said, and saw him turn to Miss Merivale as if she too was enjoying the joke. Rose could not see her aunt’s face, her parasol shaded it; but she was not leaning back against the cushions, as she usually did. She was bending a little forward, with her face turned towards Rhoda. It was quite plain to Rose that it was Miss Sampson who was absorbing the attention both of Tom and her aunt. She stared after the carriage with angry, mystified eyes. It was her place Rhoda was sitting in! She forgot how the long drives her aunt loved used to bore her. She felt that Rhoda Sampson had no right to be sitting there, and it seemed to her positively cruel of her aunt and Tom to be so happy when she was away.