In the house, where she had everything conveniently arranged in the garden-room—a sink, taps, cloths for wiping the glasses, and a cupboard full of flower vases—she proceeded leisurely to do the flowers. No one had ever known Mrs. Martin be anything but leisurely; she always had plenty to occupy her time, but she was never hurried or ruffled. It was one of her greatest charms. She selected the flower vases with nice care; some were of rough pottery, but those now stood on one side, for she consecrated them to the spring flowers and to the roses; others were of glass, like green bubbles, glaucous and iridescent, light to the hand—for Mrs. Martin could not bear glasses that were not delicately blown, and as no one ever touched them except herself, they never got broken. She had a genius for handling fragility, quick and deft, and curiously tender. She was now wondering whether Henry’s wife would some day stand in her place at the sink in the garden-room. She often wondered this, for Henry’s wife was a personage she had long since absorbed into her thoughts. She thought of her without bitterness or jealousy, simply as a part of Henry, and consequently as another person to whom she would, in due course, have to hand over the house, the garden, and the estate—to render an account of her stewardship. Mrs. Martin was thinking about her as she snipped the ends off stalks that were too long, and lifted the vases that were already filled on to the tray standing ready to receive them. It made no difference that Henry should not yet have come across his wife; she was not thereby entitled, in Mrs. Martin’s eyes, to any separate existence of her own. She was Henry’s wife; the future mistress, when Mrs. Martin was dead, of the house and all it contained. It had taken a very long time for Mrs. Martin’s mind to grow accustomed to this idea, but now that it was there she accepted it quite placidly, and it came up in its turn for examination amongst the other ideas, or was taken out when she wanted something to think about. She had even got into the way of saying to Lynes, or to the gardener, “I’m sure that Mrs. Henry would approve of that,” and if, at first, they had been a little surprised, they had quickly come to take Mrs. Henry quite for granted. She had even an affection for Henry’s wife. She liked to think of them living here together in the country, so far away from London—the country that was England although London forgot about it—and of Henry tramping over the eight hundred acres with a gun and a spaniel, while his wife stooped over the flowers in the walled garden, and she never doubted that they would frequently recall her, who had made the place what it was; recall her with a sort of grudging tenderness—she was too humanly wise a woman to expect more than that—and say, “The old lady ought to rest quietly in her grave....” She carried the tray of flowers into the hall, and from there distributed them; a big vase of coreopsis on each window sill in