With her discoveries she filled many sheets of notepaper. But Clare's letters were nicely calculated to divert enthusiasm. Their tone was changing; they allowed Alwynne to guess herself missed. There was in them a hint of appeal: a suggestion of lonely evenings----Never a word of Alwynne's doings. Yet, by implication, description of her new friends and their outlook was dismissed as unnecessary. Clare, Alwynne was to realise, would smile pleasantly as she read, and think it all rather silly. Elsbeth--_so pleased that they are so kind to you at Alicia's school_--was more genuinely uninterested. Dene Compton had been the home of a certain John Lumsden for Elsbeth. She did not care for descriptions of its metamorphosis. She wanted to hear about Dene, and her cousins, and how Alwynne was eating and sleeping, and if Roger Lumsden had come back yet. She asked twice if Roger Lumsden had come back yet. But Alwynne had an annoying habit of leaving her questions unanswered through eight closely written sheets. It was not only Clare who was very tired of co-education and Dene Compton. But Elsbeth got her news at last, and was satisfied with it as Macchiavellis usually are, whose plots are being developed by unconscious and self-willed instruments. Alwynne, who in her spare time had discovered what spring in the country could mean, tucked in the news at the end of an epistle that was purely botanical---- _... and cuckoo-pint and primroses and violets! Have you ever seen larches in bud? Oh, Elsbeth, why can't we live in the country? Every collection of buildings bigger than Dene Village ought to be razed by Act of Parliament. I expect the earth hates cities as I hated warts on my hands when I was little. Well, I must stop. Oh--the Lumsden man turned up a day or two ago. The Dears were in ecstasies, and he let himself be fussed over in the calmest way, as if he had a perfect right to it. I think he's conceited. I don't think you'd like him. He's back for good, apparently, but he won't worry me much. I'm only in at meals. The Dears are always busy and let me do as I like, and I either go up to Compton, or prowl, or take a rug and book into the garden. It's quite hot, although it's barely April--so you needn't worry. The garden is jolly, big and half wild: only "Roger" is beginning to trim it--the vandal! He's by way of being a gardener, you know. Great on bulbs and roses, I believe._ _By the way_ is _he a relation? Even The Dears are only very distant cousins, aren't they? Because he will call me "Alwynne" as if he were. I call it cheek. I was very stiff, but he's got a hide like a rhinoceros. When I said "Mr. Lumsden," he just grinned. So now I say "Roger" very markedly whenever he says "Alwynne." I can't see what Jean and Alicia see in him; but of course I have to be polite. They are dears, if you like--are giving me a lovely time._