"Oh, you don't like it! I thought it would be different to you. I thought it would seem like home, since it belonged to your own people." "Home, sweet home!" he answered with a queer smile. "Well, it is a fine place, as you say. And what have you been doing all the morning?" "Housekeeping," said Barbara. "And now"--she set down a small basket of keys on the hall table, as if she were preparing for action--"now I am going to set the clock right." "I'll stay for that if you'll allow me," said Reynold. "I remember what you told me last night. It is _the_ time, and the world stands still when it stops." "For me, not for you," the girl replied. "You have your watch--you don't believe in the big clock." "Yes, I do. Here, in Mitchelhurst, what does one want with any but Mitchelhurst time? What have I to do with Greenwich? But as for Mitchelhurst, your uncle has talked to me till I feel as if I were all the Rothwells who ever lived here. Why, what's this? Sunshine!" "Yes," said Barbara. "It's going to clear up." It could hardly be called actual sunlight, but there certainly was a touch of pale autumn gold growing brighter about them as they stood. Harding was listening to the monotonous tick--tick--tick--tick. "I remember a man in some book," he said, "who didn't like to hear a clock going--always counting out time in small change." "Oh, but that's a worrying idea! I should hate to think of my life doled out to me like that!" "I'm afraid you must," he answered, with his little rough-edged laugh. "It would be very delightful to take one's life in a lump, but how are you going to have more than a moment in a moment? There are plenty of us always trying to do it. If you could find out the way----" "How, trying?" said Barbara. "Trying to keep the past and grasp the future," Harding replied. "Working and waiting for some moment which is to hold at least half a lifetime--when it comes! Oh, I quite agree with you; I should like a feast, and I am fed by spoonfuls!" She looked up at him a little doubtfully, and the clock went on ticking. "I always thought it was like a heart beating," she said, swerving from the idea he had presented as if it were distasteful. "Now!" There was silence in the empty hall, as if, in very truth, she had laid her brown young hand upon Time's flying pulse, and stilled it. "Talk of killing time!" said Harding. "No," Barbara answered, without turning her head. "Time's asleep--that's all--asleep and dreaming. He'll soon wake up again."