"I've been enjoying myself so much," she said. "I met Mr. Austin, and we've actually climbed the Beacon together. He was very grumpy at first, but he couldn't keep it up. How hunting people hate frost. I'm rather glad I don't ride. If I did, I think I should neglect everything else for it, like Mr. Austin. He's great fun when you get him alone, isn't he? And then, on the way home, we met his ladylove—Mrs. Norman. I know all about it. He was singing her praises most of the way. Well, she stopped and asked to be introduced to me, and, Miss Urquhart, we only chatted together for about ten minutes, but it's going to be war to the knife between us!" "My dear Jockie, don't say such things!" "But I must. I tell you everything. And I made a most astonishing discovery; that's why I have come to tell it to you. But I'll give you our conversation first. She began by commiserating Austin—I can't help calling him by his Christian name to you—upon the frost, and then I spoke up. "'It will keep him more at home, Mrs. Norman, and that will be a good thing,' for Austin had been telling me a little of his home affairs. She gave me a nasty gleam out of her eye, and then, ignoring me, went on to talk about people in the hunting field, whom, of course, I didn't know; and then, looking at her, it suddenly flashed across me, and I said: 'I've seen you before, Mrs. Norman, and I know someone whom you know.' "She gave a little start, but smiled and said: "'I'm afraid I don't remember you.' "'But your daughter is my greatest friend,' I said, 'and I saw you once when we travelled to town together, and you told her that you could not have her with you for the Christmas holidays. It was a blow to her, poor girl, for her aunts were abroad, and you sent her to an old nurse who kept lodgings in some fusty London square. Poor Gavine had an awful Christmas; she wrote and told me all about it.' "'Oh,' she said, 'do you really know my dear Gavine? Yes, I remember, poor child. I don't know who felt it most, she or I. That was a dreadful Christmas. And so you are one of her schoolfellows! How delightful! You must come and see me, and we will have great talks together.' "'I'm going to get Cousin John to invite Gavine down here,' I went on. 'She never has any pleasures with her invalid aunts.' "'I think when her aunts can spare her, she will come to me,' she said, and she tried to speak very haughtily. So I laughed and said: "'But you never want her, do you? There's always some reason why you can't have her.' "And then she glared at me and went on talking very fast to Austin, and presently I said good-bye and left them. Now, isn't it funny that I did not connect her with Gavine before, as, of course, it is the same name? And do you know, Miss Urquhart, that her daughter doesn't know where she is? She hardly ever writes to her, and Gavine thought she was abroad." Jockie paused for breath, and Sidney looked quite mystified.