Everyone else at Staple having engagements of one sort or another, she had promised herself a lazy afternoon in company with the latest novel sent down from Mudie’s. But she was in no immediate hurry to begin its pages. The mellow warmth of the afternoon tempted her to the more restful occupation of mere day-dreaming, and as she lay tucked up snugly amongst her cushions, enjoying the sweet-scented airs that played among the trees and over the surface of the water, she allowed her thoughts to drift idly back across the two months she had spent at Staple. The time had slipped by so quickly that it was hard to believe that rather more than eight weeks had elapsed since that grey February evening when she had alighted on the little, deserted platform at Coombe Eavie Station. They had been quiet, happy weeks, filled with the pleasant building up of new friendships, and Jean reflected that she had already grown to look upon Staple almost as “home.” She possessed in a large measure the capacity to adapt herself to her surroundings, and realising that Lady Anne had been perfectly sincere in her expressed desire to play at having a daughter, Jean had, at first a little tentatively, but afterwards, encouraged by Lady Anne’s obvious delight, with more assurance, gradually assumed the duties that would naturally fall to the daughter of the house. Day by day she had discovered an increasing pleasure and significance in their performance. They were like so many tiny links knitting her life into the lives of those around her, and already Lady Anne had begun to turn to her instinctively in the small difficulties and necessities which, one way or another, most days bring in their train. Jean appreciated this as only a girl who had counted for very little in the lives of those nearest her could do. It seemed to make her “belong” in a way in which she had never “belonged” at Beirnfels. There, Glyn and Jacqueline had turned to each other for counsel in the little daily vicissitudes of life equally as in its larger concerns, and Jean had learned to regard herself as more or less outside their lives. She had had one letter from Peterson since her arrival at Staple, a brief, characteristic note in which he expressed the hope that she liked England “better than her father ever could” but suggested that if she were bored she should return to Beirnfels, and ask some woman friend to stay with her; he warned her not to expect further letters from him for some time to come as, according to his present plans--of which he volunteered no particulars--he expected to spend the next few months “as far from civilisation as the restricted size of this world permits.”