Maythorne was an irregular old house, renovated; with white paint, modern furniture, and pretty chintz; its ceilings were low, its stairs shallow, and in the long passages were unexpected steps. Letty’s apartments were detached, she had selected them on purpose, that she might play and sing without disturbing her neighbours. Around the house were smooth lawns of turf, winding paths and alleys among laurels and rhododendrons; here and there a noble forest tree, and clumps of rose-trees, and high delphiniums of a royal and dazzling blue, and here Letty spent many an hour with a book, her own thoughts, and the infatuated Toby. As June melted into an unusually warm July, the number of guests increased; day by day one noted new faces; large family parties, father, mother, boys and girls, who preferred the country, with golf, tennis, picnics, and bicycling, to the seductions of the seaside. The term of ‘week-end’ had not yet been coined, but the actual thing existed; and many city men ran down from town from Friday to Monday for golf, fresh air, and good country food. Maythorne had also a reputation for ‘pretty girls.’ By all accounts, there was a wonderful beauty staying there now; she sat in a niche near the far door and was alone. Also it was a case of ‘paws off!’ and the lady always got out of the room before the dessert, and disappeared. It was true Mrs. Glyn got out of the room ‘before the dessert,’ those staring eyes frightened her, and she slipped away to a certain remote seat in the ground,--as yet undiscovered by others,--and there contemplated the undulating country, whose fresh green pastures, dark woods, and delicate blue distances, seemed to act as balm upon an open wound. “But what _is_ the good of it all?” she would murmur (a phrase caught from Cousin Maude). Why had she been born? where was her place in the world? No wife, and no widow; her child taken from her; no home, and but two friends, Frances and Cousin Maudie--an encumbrance to both! Frances, the sister of Lancelot, must know how she had spoiled her brother’s life; how _could_ she endure her? Cousin Maude, with her self-centred existence (out of which her divorce had figuratively torn her), had once more retreated into her shell. School-fellows, Irish cousins, which of these would venture to know her,--a divorcée? And who could blame them? She thought of the other girls here: happy girls of her own age; from her nook, she could hear gay voices and laughter on the croquet ground, but she might not mix with them; the old ladies had spoken--_they_ could associate with her--not so the young people.