"Yes." Laura paused, her charming, irregular face with its creamy complexion and frame of brown wavy hair turned to the speaker, and her broad forehead wrinkled a little, as it was when she was puzzled or perturbed. "But I really am sorry for them now. You see, the privet hedge hid all those streets from the garden. They could forget there were any there. Now they won't be able to forget." She paused. "I simply daren't tell them who has bought Thorhaven Hall. I know it gave even me a shock, because I always used to feel an awed sensation--the sort you have going into a strange church or a museum when you are little--whenever I called at the Hall. It was so dark and big and quiet, and the old butler took your name as if you were at a funeral, and ought to be awfully honoured to have been asked to attend. I simply can't imagine the Perritt's there." Mrs. Graham rose. "Oh, I believe the Perritt children are very sweet. And there is something rather nice about Mrs. Perritt, I'm told." Miss Ethel looked across the room, and it was evident that she heard the last remark, for she said in a dry tone: "Lots of people would discover something sweet about me if I came into ten thousand a year; nothing like money for enabling the eye to detect hidden charms." Mrs. Graham laughed somewhat uneasily. "How amusing you are, Miss Ethel! I often tell Arthur it is quite refreshing to have a chat with you." But for all that, she began to move towards the door. Laura also rose, and it could be now seen that her tall figure was a trifle angular and immature, and must remain so, for she was already twenty-eight years old. "I will come as far as your house, Mrs. Graham," she said. "Godfrey promised to call for me there." "Well! No good crying over spilt milk," said Mr. Graham, standing and shaking down his trousers--after a habit he had--with his hands in his pockets. "Things will never be the same again in our day, Miss Ethel." "No." Mrs. Bradford, who had been silent, as she often was, unexpectedly entered the conversation, saying in her heavy voice: "Things will never be the same again." And a brief silence followed her words. You could fancy them echoing in every heart there. "I remember getting oranges twelve a penny in Flodmouth," continued Mrs. Bradford, stirred to unwonted intellectual effort. "Twelve a penny! Perhaps you don't believe me, but I did." No one taking up the gage which Mrs. Bradford thus threw down, the guests said farewell and then went out into the starlight. As they walked along, all Laura's thoughts were about the lover waiting for her; but Mr. and Mrs. Graham could not get rid of that slight sense of inward discomfort--stirred afresh by Mrs. Bradford's first remark--which many middle-aged people experience as a result of Fate's ruthlessly quick forcing of new wine into old bottles.