In front of her sat Sarah and Selina. The day’s work was over. They had watched seeds planted and seeds watered. They had assisted at the staking of sweet-peas and the two-hourly feeding of small chicken. Now they demanded, as their habit was, in short sharp barks of a distinctly irritating nature, that they should be taken for a walk. Sarah and Selina were the sole extravagance of Ruth’s forty years of life. They had been unwanted in a hard world. Aberdeens were out of fashion, and their sex, like Ruth’s own in the struggle for existence, had been against them. So bare pennies which Ruth could ill afford had gone to the keep of Sarah and Selina, and in return they loved her as only a dog can love. Sarah was a rather large lady, usually of admirable manners and behaviour. Only once had she seriously fallen from grace, and, to Ruth’s horror, had presented her with five black and white puppies of a description unknown before in heaven or earth. Moreover, she was quite absurdly pleased with herself, and Selina was, equally absurdly, quite unbearably jealous. Selina had never been a lady, either in manners or behaviour. She was younger and smaller than Sarah, and of infinite wickedness both in design and execution. Ruth looked at them as they sat side by side before her. “To the stile and back,” she said, “and you may have ten minutes’ hunt in the wood.” The pathway to the stile led through a field of buttercups, the stile into the station road. That field puzzled Ruth. It was radiantly beautiful, but it was bad farming. Also it was the only bit of bad farming on the whole place. Every other inch of ground was utilized to the best advantage, cultivated up to the hilt, well-fed, infinitely cared for. Ruth was not curious, and had asked no questions concerning the late owner of Thorpe, nor was any one of this time left on the farm. The war had swept them away. But after two months’ possession of the place, she had begun to realize the extraordinary amount of love and care that had been bestowed on it by some one. In a subtle way the late owner had materialized for her. She had begun to wonder why he had done this or that. Once or twice she had caught herself wishing she could ask his advice over some possible improvement. So she looked at the buttercups and wondered, and by the stile she noticed a hole in the hedge on the left-hand side, and wondered again. It was the only hole she had found in those well-kept hedges.