"Spring always seems to me a little silly," she asserted. "It's all so hopeful and promising, and hope and promise are such callow things and fall so soon in ruins." Suddenly realising that she had broken one of her inviolable rules in betraying so intimate a glimpse of her personality, Miss Dorset hastily turned into a less personal channel. "I think the word 'jejune' expresses what I feel about spring, but, as you say, the autumn is a fine season, and to-day is really beautiful." Mrs. Greene held her peace. She had always possessed too much sensibility to frustrate anyone's means of escape from a conversational predicament. She had never pressed for a confidence. But as they walked down the path and out at the further gate from garden to wood it struck her as strange that there should be this kinship of thought between Miss Dorset and her. The inequalities of life are very marked, she thought. Most of us arrive at the same conclusion, but the ways in which we reach it are as many as the leaves scuttling at my feet. I lived for seventy-five good years, then Geoffrey died and the lean years came. All that was left was to do the best I could from day to day, trying to be a little stoical, and not getting too whining and senile. But here's this poor dried-up creature. She never had a spring time and yet she lives like me from day to day getting a little pleasure here and a little comfort there, but really only living towards the grave. Her heart stirred with pity as she thought of the glowing human relationships that had been her happiness and delight for seventy-five years, contrasted with the absolute emptiness of Miss Dorset's thirty-eight years. "The trouble is I've lived too long; three years too long; but she's never lived at all." Inadvertently she spoke aloud, but Miss Dorset was quite unaware of the trend of thought that had led to the remark. "I beg your pardon," she said mechanically, more as a warning to her employer that she was thinking aloud, than in expectation of a reply. Mrs. Greene, however, answered abruptly: "There's a ruby and diamond brooch in the safe that I'm going to give you when we go through my things this afternoon. I meant to leave it to you anyhow, but you might as well have it now. I'd like to see you wearing it." She hardly heard Miss Dorset's surprised and nervous thanks. She was again lost in thought, appreciating with painful clearness her motive in making this impulsive gesture. Life had given nothing to Clara Dorset, so she, Margaret Greene, was giving her a diamond and ruby brooch. It seemed somehow inadequate; Mrs. Greene smiled at the thought of how inadequate it was, but she sighed sharply at the tragic futility of all human endeavours to compensate, to strike a balance between loss and gain.