There had been in the very long ago a marriage between a Wake and an Oglethorpe. Lord and Lady Wantley had made this fact the excuse to be persistently courteous and kind to the peculiar spinster lady, and in this matter Penelope had followed her parents' example. Two or three times a year--in fact, it might almost be said, whenever she was in London--Penelope Robinson shed the radiance of her brilliant presence on the dowdy little lodging, always paying Miss Wake the compliment of coming at the right time, that is, between four and six, and of being beautifully dressed. On one such occasion, when she might surely have been forgiven for cutting short her call, for she was on the way to a royal garden-party, she had actually prolonged her visit nearly forty minutes! Yet another time she had come in for only a moment, but bringing with her a gift which had deeply moved Miss Wake, for the noble water-colour drawing seemed to bear into the dingy London sitting-room a breath of the rolling hills and limitless dales of that tract of country which lies in Yorkshire on the border of Westmorland, and which the old lady still felt to be home. 'I thought you would like it,' Penelope had exclaimed eagerly. 'I went over to Cargill Force from Oglethorpe, and I chose the place----' 'I know,' had interrupted Miss Wake, her voice trembling a little in spite of herself. 'You must have drawn it from the mound by the Old Lodge. I recognise the fir-tree, though it must have grown a good deal since I was there last. The hills seem further off than they used to do years ago, and, of course, we do not often have such bad weather as that you have shown here. There are often long days without any rain.' Penelope had driven away a little chilled. 'I wonder if she would have preferred a photograph,' she said to herself. But Miss Wake would not have preferred a photograph. She saw not Nature as her cousin, Mrs. Robinson, saw it, and she by no means wished she could; but she found herself looking more often, and always with increasing conviction of its truth, at the painting which showed the storm-god let loose over the wild expanse of country which formed the background to all her early life and associations. Finally Miss Wake hung the water-colour in the place of honour over her mantelpiece, where she could herself always see it from where she sat nursing both her real and her fancied ailments.