"We'll go right down to Biscay, after lunch," planned Mrs. Cartwright, as they landed at the small iron pier above the oyster parks. Then she guided them through the belt of pine woods that lay between the two borders of sandhills, past the lighthouse which they saw every day as a warning finger, but with which they now made acquaintance as the huge tower it was; she led them to the inn where they were to lunch. This was a long white building, its corners rounded and scoured by the flying sands borne on the gales of winter. "Outside is the best dining-room," said Mrs. Cartwright. "I daresay Madame will think us mad--but it's an Indian summer day today. The Professor told me that you Welsh people call it '_the little summer of the Angels_.' Come along!" And having given her order to the smiling French landlady (who wore a black shawl, a bright blue apron, and a brighter blue glass comb in her black hair), she led the others to a table in the sunny yard, under the wooden veranda. Its green paint had flaked off beneath those noisy gales, but the latticework was over-grown with passion-flower vines and other vines, richly clustered with bunches of sweet white grapes. "Our dessert," said Mrs. Cartwright, nodding towards the fruit. "Madame will come and cut the bunches while we are eating the Biscay sole." Lunch was brought; before she began upon the sole Mrs. Cartwright threw off the loose brown coat that she had worn for the crossing in the motor-boat, and appeared in a frock that Olwen had never seen before. Yesterday, the girl had noticed, a carton-box had arrived for the writer at the hotel; doubtless this was the dress that it had contained.... It was of rough sky-blue crêpy stuff with touches of creamy edging and of dull pink stitchery, very simple, for all Mrs. Cartwright's clothes were simply cut. This was something more than simple, though, almost ... trivial, was it? A frock for a more insignificant person? Olwen could not have told you why she shouldn't quite like that frock. It wasn't altogether that it seemed too young; and it did fit her, perfectly. Perhaps the fact that Olwen noticed it at all showed how well the elder woman's clothes generally did suit her. Today--not only her frock was different, but her mood was different. It puzzled little Olwen entirely.... As the sole and the potatoes in their jackets gave place to an admirably-cooked ham omelette, Mrs. Cartwright was saying almost audacious things, that passed as swiftly as the shadows of the gulls swooped over the sands. And she seemed conscious that she was "being different...." Why? It was almost as though she were playing at some game; she thought feverishly. As if half of her sat apart, watching the play, criticizing, exchanging notes with people who were not Miss Walsh, not Olwen.