Mrs. Machell laughed as she looked about her at the chaotic state of things which had so disgusted Kirkby. She was a fine, bright little thing, Mattie thought, and Joe might have done worse than marry her. Her cheeks were still fresh, and the gold of her hair shone as she took off her hat in a business-like manner. She was the same age as Joe, too, which meant a couple of years older than Ellen.... Mattie joined in the laugh with the heartiness of the excellent housewife who for once in a lifetime is found wanting. “Ay, it looks like it, I’m sure,” she agreed, in reply to Mrs. Machell’s remark that at all events there seemed plenty to be going on with. “I’ll be right grateful if you’ll help me to put things straight. Kirkby was that sick about ’em at dinner, it fair went to your heart to see him! A man minds a house being pulled about a deal more than a woman.” “They do that!” Dolly Machell nodded wisely. “They make as much noise about it as a dog being skifted from its kennel. I daren’t so much as move a chair in our spot but Len’s as uneasy as an earthquake!” Mattie felt a prick in her pride that an under-gardener should presume to indulge in the same idiosyncrasies as distinguished Kirkby, but she covered it hastily. “Ay, well, men must be men,” she returned kindly, generously admitting Len into at least that one category. “I’d a feeling I must be doing something right off,” she went on, conscious that the general upset needed some explanation. “Of course, I know it’s over early yet to be arranging about the sale, but it won’t be trouble wasted. I know a deal better where I am than when I started in at things, this morning.” Mrs. Machell stole a glance at her in the chair into which she had sunk after taking her visitor into the kitchen. Mattie was hardly conscious that she had sat down, or that she was beginning to feel the effects of the work and excitement of the morning. But to Mrs. Machell weariness was written plain in the lines of her flushed face and the droop of her broad shoulders. Loose strands of her hair were straying wildly across her forehead. Her hands, resting heavily in her lap, looked older than the rest of her. “Then you’re really thinking of leaving, Mrs. Kirkby?” Dolly asked, with a casualness assumed to hide an inward tremor. “Len said it was as certain as rent-day, but I said I didn’t believe it.” There came over Mattie the same reluctance to commit herself to a definite statement as she had felt when Dick’s hinting had put a similar question. Indeed, now that she came to think of it, she had not been definite even with Len. He had assumed certain things, that was all, and she had allowed him to assume them. It was only to herself and to Kirkby that she had so far put into straight words the great fact of their going.