Katherine left her sister’s room with the most curious sensations. She was foiled at every point by Stella’s lightness, by her self-occupation, the rapidity of her loose and shallow thoughts, and their devotion to one subject. She recognised in a half-angry way the potency and influence of this self-occupation. It was so sincere that it was almost interesting. Stella found her own concerns full of interest; she had no amiable delusions about them. She spoke out quite simply what she felt, even about her children. She did not claim anything except boundless indulgence for herself. And then it struck Katherine very strangely, it must be allowed, to hear herself described as a great, robust, middle-aged woman. Was that how Stella saw her--was she _that_, probably, to other people? She laughed a little to herself, but it was not a happy laugh. How misguided was the poet when he prayed that we might see ourselves as others see us! Would not that be a dreadful coming down to almost everybody, even to the fairest and the wisest. The words kept flitting through Katherine’s mind without any will of hers. “A great, robust, middle-aged woman.” She passed a long mirror in the corridor (there were mirrors everywhere in Mr. Tredgold’s much decorated house), and started a little involuntarily to see the slim black figure in it gliding forward as if to meet her. Was this herself, Katherine, or was it the ghost of what she had thought she was, a girl at home, although twenty-nine? After all, middle-age does begin with the thirties, Katherine said to herself. Dante was thirty-five only when he described himself as at the _mezzo del cammin_. Perhaps Stella was right. She was three years younger. As she went towards the stairs occupied by these thoughts, she suddenly saw Sir Charles, a tall shadow, still more ghost-like than herself, in the mirror, with a little white figure seated on his shoulder. It was the little Job, the delicate boy, his little feet held in his father’s hand to keep them warm, his arms clinging round his father’s head as he sat upon his shoulder. Katherine started when she came upon the group, and made out the little boy’s small face and staring eyes up on those heights. Her brother-in-law greeted her with a laugh: “You wouldn’t stop with me to smoke a cigar, so I have found a companion who never objects. You like the smoke, don’t you, Job?” “Job fader’s little boy,” said the small creature, in a voice with a shiver in it. “Put a shawl round him, at least,” cried Katherine, going hastily to a wardrobe in the corridor; “the poor little man is cold.” “Not a bit, are you, Job, with your feet in father’s hand?” “Indland,” said the child, with a still more perceptible shiver, “Indland’s cold.” But he tried to kick at Katherine as she approached to put the shawl round him, which Sir Charles stooped to permit, with an instinct of politeness.