They had reached the first month of autumn, and Jane was sitting out on the lawn in Brodrick's garden. The slender, new-born body of Prothero's Poems lay in her lap. Eddy Heron stretched himself at her feet. Winny hung over her shoulder. Every now and then the child swept back her long hair that brushed Jane's face, in the excitement of her efforts to see what, as she phrased it, Mr. Prothero had done. Opposite them Mrs. Heron and Gertrude Collett sat quietly sewing. Eddy, who loved to tease his mother, was talking about Jane as if she wasn't there. "I say, Mummy, don't you like her awfully?" "Of course I like her," said Mrs. Heron, smiling at her son. "Why do you like me?" said Jane, whose vision of Owen Prothero was again obscured by Winny's hair. "Why do we like anybody?" said Mrs. Heron, with her inassailable reserve. "You can't get out of it that way, Mum. You don't just go liking anybody. You like jolly few. We're an awful family for not liking people. Aren't we, Gee-Gee?" "I didn't know it," said Miss Collett. "Oh, but Gee-Gee's thinking of Uncle Hugh," said Winny. Miss Collett's face stiffened. She _was_ thinking of him. "Uncle Hugh? Why, he's worse than any of us. With women--ladies--anyhow." "Eddy, dear!" said Eddy's mother. "Well, have you ever seen a lady Uncle Hugh could really stand--except Miss Holland?" Gertrude bent so low over her work that her face was hidden. "I say! look at that kid. Can't you take your hair out of Miss Holland's face? She doesn't want your horrid hair." "Yes, I do," said Jane. She was grateful for the veil of Winny's hair. They had not arrived suddenly, the five of them, at this intimacy. It had developed during the last fortnight, which Jane, fulfilling a promise, had spent with Dr. Brodrick and Mrs. Heron. Jane had been ill, and Brodrick had brought her to his brother's house to recover. Dr. Henry had been profoundly interested in her case. So had his sister, Mrs. Heron, and Mr. John Brodrick and Mrs. John, and Sophy Levine and Gertrude Collett, and Winny and Eddy Heron.