In all the history of mankind there could never have been anybody more free than Mrs. Clapham to take what her heart desired, and just at the moment when it was most accessible to her reach. All the ties and burdens of life seemed to fall away from her as she sat waiting there, looking for the news that was certain to come, with the happy expectancy of a trustful child. It was only when things were _meant_ that they fell out so perfectly at the right time, flowing naturally to their end as the day flows into night. It was only then that they were accomplished without hitch or jar (unless you chose to consider Martha Jane a sort of jar). Everybody’s hand seemed to stretch out to give you your wish when it came at the right time, and this seemed in every respect the perfectly right time. It had come, too, when she was old and weary enough really to appreciate it, and yet not too old and weary to care. She could say to herself that she had fought an honourable battle with life, and was now at liberty to seek her ease. She could say to herself with pride and as often as she liked that she had won her almshouse on Hermitage Hill. Even by the fields the almshouses were at least a mile away from her little cottage, but in Mrs. Clapham’s mind they showed as clearly as in a picture hung on the wall. Grey, gabled, flower-gardened, they topped the steep hill that ran up out of the village on the great north road, challenging by their perfection the notice of the passer-by. From them you looked down over grassy slopes to the roofs of the village, the long shape of the Hall against its wooded hill, and further across still to the mystery of the sea. Unscamped and well-built in every inch, they were growing more aristocratic and mellow with every year that passed. The change to them from the uneven-floored, crooked-walled cottage in which Mrs. Clapham had lived so long would be, when it came, like the change to a king’s palace. To have a roof of her own, with nothing to pay for it, nothing to fear, would make her feel little less of a property-owner than his lordship himself. Moving up to that high place from the huddled and crouching street would be like soaring on strong wings into the open spaces of the sky.