The 24th of March was wonderful weather. Uncle Tim, coming over from his house up the road, to luncheon, said that he had never seen a finer day. He said this to his sister Harriet, standing before the window of her little room, looking down upon the lawn that reflected the sunny shadows like a glass, looking down upon the clumps of daffodils that nodded their heads to him from the thick grass by the garden wall. Harriet was very fond of her brother; she had an intimate relationship with him that had never been expressed in words by either of them. She was a little afraid of him. She was sitting now writing notes. She did not pause as she talked to him, and sometimes she rubbed the side of her nose with her fingers in a puzzled way. She wrote a large sprawling hand, and often spelt her words wrongly. This conversation was before luncheon. “Well, Harriet,” Tim said. “How are you?” She looked up for a moment at his big, loose, untidy body, his shaggy beard, his ruffled hair. “Why do you never brush your hair, Tim? It’s such a bad example for Henry. And you’re standing in the light.... Thank you.... Oh—I’m very well. Why didn’t you come in last night, as you said you would?... Yes, I’m quite well, thank you.” “I went walking,” said Timothy. “I do brush my hair, only I am not going to put grease on it for anybody ... How do you like the young man?” Mrs. Trenchard nodded her head several times as though she were adding up a sum. “He likes it here, I think, although of course it must be quiet for him—‘And if Tuesday—isn’t convenient—suggest—another day—next week!’” “So you don’t like him even so much as you expected to?” “No.” She answered quite abruptly, spreading her large hand flat out upon the table as though, by her sudden pounce, she had caught a fly. “He’s weaker than I had fancied, and vainer.... More insignificant altogether.... Miss Propert, The Close, Polchester....” “He’s weak, yes,” said Tim, staring down upon his sister. “But he isn’t insignificant. He’s weak because his imagination paints for him so clearly the dreadful state of things it would be if affairs went wrong. He wants then terribly to make them right. But he hasn’t the character to do much himself, and he knows it. A man who knows he’s weak isn’t insignificant.” Mrs. Trenchard made no reply. “Well, what are you going to do about it?” at last said Tim. “Oh, he’ll marry Katherine of course.” “And then?” “And then they’ll live here.... ‘Dear Canon, I wonder whether ...’—” “And then?” “And then—why then it will be just as it is now.” “Oh! I see!” Timothy turned his back upon her, staring down upon all the green that came up like a river to the walls of the house. His eyes were grave, his back square, his hands locked tight. He heard the scratching of his sister’s pen—otherwise there was deep silence about them. He wheeled round. “Harriet, look here! I’ve never—no, I think, never—asked you a favour.”