the sitting-room, a bowl of marigolds on the table where the light of the lamp would fall straight on to them in the evening, a bowl of snapdragons in the centre of the hall, red and yellow nasturtiums on the dining-room table. There remained two little pots of snapdragon, which she took upstairs and put on the dressing-table in his bedroom. She came down again. The bronze of the flowers, she thought, suited the house, with its bits of oak panelling, the polished stairs of a golden-brown, and the pile carpet of mouse-brown in the sitting-room. She was pleased with her survey, though a little tired. She heaved the sigh of happy tiredness. Five years alone here, alone except for the neighbours; and although she liked being alone, and was quite content between Lynes and her garden in the daytime, and her books in the evening, she was very glad that Henry—who was really her unseen and constant companion, at the back of her mind in everything she did—should be coming back to her at last. III She watched the motor as it drove off to the station. She had had it opened, and had sent a number of coats and rugs with it lest Henry should be cold. By this time she was completely tired out, having pursued her self-imposed business down to its minutest detail, but the consciousness that she had done everything she had to do buoyed her up with the pleasure of virtue. Although she knew that she could not expect the motor back for at least half-an-hour, she enveloped herself in an old brown cape and went to sit on the little bench in the porch. The mist had by now been completely dispersed by the sun, which had rolled it away in curls and shavings of vapour, that clung about the trees as though reluctant to go, and finally melted away, leaving a day full of damp gold, with the pheasants calling in the distance along the margins of the fields nearest to the coppices. Mrs. Martin sat in the porch with her feet propped up on the opposite bench. She rested contentedly, folding her old brown cloak round her, and letting her head nod under its big black straw hat as she dozed. She looked like some old shepherd nodding after his dinner hour. The pigeons came and pecked about under her feet for stray grains of maize, and were joined by some chickens from the farmyard that came scurrying across the court, the big Rhode Island Reds and the white Wyandottes with their bright yellow legs prinking round and squawking as all their heads met in a rush over the same grain. Mrs. Martin smiled as she dozed, like a mother smiling indulgently at the squabble of her children. The sunlight fell in a sharp line across the flag-stone of the porch. Little bright drops of moisture formed on the hairy tweed of Mrs. Martin’s cloak where her gentle and regular breathing blew down the front of it. She had not meant to go to sleep. She would not have believed that she could go to sleep while she was actually waiting for the arrival of Henry. Five