At the end of a fortnight she began to have a longing for some traffic with the outer world. She was becoming as melancholy as the Lady of Shalott; and the _Daily Mirror_, in which she gazed every morning to find a reflection of the incidents of life, only caused her longings to be increased. The things of the farm, the incidents of the orchard, the promise of the crops, the “likely” calves, the multiplying of the lambs, now ceased to interest her. Neither her father nor her mother had encouraged her to take any interest in the great money-making farm; they gave her to understand that her part in connection with the farm was to spend the money that it made for the family. She was to be a “lady,” and this involved laziness in all matters that mattered in connection with the farm. She was to give all her attention to her piano, to her painting, to her dressing, all these being accomplishments as essential to the development of a “lady” as an acquaintance with the methods of the farm was detrimental to the effecting of this end--the great end of life. But Priscilla had, without any desire to go against the will of her parents, come to perceive how infinitely more interesting were the things of the farm than the working of tea cloths and the embroidering of teapot cosies--the eminently ladylike occupations which her mother encouraged her to pursue. The consequence was that, in the course of a year or two, she knew a great deal about the farm, and several times she had detected errors made by the men responsible for at least two of the departments; but having only communicated her knowledge to the men themselves, and not to her father, she had not hurt the susceptibilities of either the former or the latter. But now, as the month of May went on, and she remained watching how all living things around her were full of the delights of companionship, she had a sense of loneliness--of isolation. She felt keenly just now the cruelty of her position in respect of the “sets” at Framsby. She knew that the Tennis and Croquet Club was in full swing, but she was not a member. Rosa Caffyn had been made to understand by Mrs. Gifford, the lady who practically ran the club, that she need not put up Miss Wadhurst’s name, for she would have no chance of being admitted. Then there were two cricket matches being played on the county ground, but she had no one with whom she could go, though she took great interest in cricket, and all Framsby would be there.