Ursula went on down the drive, her thoughts idle, her appreciation vivid. Arrived in the macadamised road of civilisation, she followed it without giving a thought to the fact that girls, soaked to the skin, hatless but happy, are rareties along even country roads. The surface had been rapidly softening under the downpour, but little she cared for that either. Blackberries gleamed scarlet, purple, black in every hedge; thrushes, in the now gentle rain, were already out on the war-path for worms; and the sweep of the South Downs on her right was visible through the dripping trees. Ursula began to sing to herself as she went, breaking off to nod friendlily to a carter who knew her, and picking up her song again without troubling whether or not he was out of earshot. That was her way. She had always seen clearly and scorned muddle-headed conventionalities; at first, while her father lived and she was still in her teens, with a certain submission to authority, but since, after her twenty-first birthday, quite openly and frankly. Her mother, who never had had much of a will of her own, gave in to her daughter as she had to her husband. Thus, at Ursula's suggestion, they had taken the old cottage under Chanctonbury on the edge, but actually part of, Mr. Tressor's estate, and Mrs. Manning had been forced to admit the advantage of the change from the big establishment which Mr. Manning had maintained as befitted a banking magnate. Then, a rather lonely aunt coming to live with them, the girl had announced her intention of having a flat and studio in town, and since she had her own money and moreover made more, nothing in the world was able to prevent her. She came and went now between the two, with intervals of wandering abroad. She had a big circle of her own acquaintances of whom her mother knew little, chiefly however, it must be confessed, because she did not understand more than about a third of what they said and did when they came down to Sussex with her daughter; but she had only a few friends. These her mother knew less than the rest, retaining enough spirit to avow definitely that she did not want to know them. They professed views and took part in movements which were, frankly, beyond toleration. There was Muriel Lister, for example, who preached in churches and actually led a campaign for the admission of women to the priesthood.