Very happy had her early years been. The house at Garth, rambling, untidy, intimate, with the croquet-lawn in front of it, the little wild wood at the right of it, the high sheltering green fields at the left of it, the old church Tower above the little wood, the primroses and cuckoos, the owls and moonlight nights, the hot summer days with the hum of the reaping machine, the taste of crushed strawberries, the dim-sleepy voices from the village street. _This_ was a world! The Old House had never changed—as she had grown it had dwindled perhaps, but ever, as the years passed, had enclosed more securely the passion of her heart. She saw herself standing in the dim passage that led to her bedroom, a tiny, stumpy figure. She could hear the voice of Miss Mayer, the governess, “Now, Katherine—come along, please—Millie’s in bed.” She could smell the tallow of the candle, could hear the owls’ hoot from the dark window, could smell apples and roses somewhere, could remember how intensely she had caught that moment and held it, and carried it, for ever and ever, away with her. Yes, that _was_ a World! And, beyond the House, there was the Country. Every lane and wood and hill did she know. Those thick, deep, scented lanes that only Glebeshire in all the world can provide—the road to Rafiel, running, at first, with only a moment’s peep now and again of the sea, then plunging with dramatic fling, suddenly down into the heart of the Valley. There was Rafiel—Rafiel, the only Cove in all the world! How as the dog-cart bumped down that precipice had her heart been in her mouth, how magical the square harbour, the black Peak, the little wall of white-washed cottages, after that defeated danger! There were all the other places—St. Lowe and Polwint, Polchester with the Cathedral and the Orchards and the cobbled streets, Grane Woods and Grane Castle, Rothin Woods, Roche St. Mary, Moore with the seadunes and the mists and rabbits, the Loroe river and the fishing-boats at Pelynt—world of perfect beauty and simplicity, days stained with the high glory of romance. And this was Trenchard Country! London, coming to her afterwards, had, at first, been hated, only gradually accepted. She grew slowly fond of the old Westminster house, but the crowds about her confused and perplexed her. She was aware now that, perhaps, there were those in the world who cared nothing for the Trenchards. She flew from such confusion the more intensely into her devotion to her own people. It was as though, at the very first peep of the world, she had said to herself—“No. That is not my place. They have no need of me nor I of them. They would change me. I do not wish to be changed.” She was aware of her own duty the more strongly because her younger sister, Millicent, had taken always the opposite outlook. Millicent, pretty, slender, witty, attractive, had always found home (even Garth and its glories) ‘a little slow’.