What did she want? She had the Ogden children, they were an interest and they represented her pocket money--if only Joan were older! After all, better a home with a kind brother at Seabourne than life on a pittance in London. But something in her strove and rent: "Not better, not better!" it shouted. "I want to get out, it's I, I, I! I want to live, I want to get out, let me out I tell you, I want to come out!" 2 "Elizabeth, dear, how are you?" Her brother had come in quietly behind her. "Better, thank you. You're not wet, are you, Ralph? It's been raining." "No, not a bit. I wish you'd been there, Elizabeth. Such a fine sermon." "What was the text," she inquired. One always inquired what the text had been; the question sprang to her lips mechanically. "'Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many days!' A beautiful text, I think." "Yes, very beautiful," Elizabeth agreed. "Curious that being the text to-day." "Why?" he asked her, but his voice lacked interest; he didn't really want to know. She thought: "I suppose I've cast my bread upon the waters, it must be a long way out at sea by now." Then she began to visualize the bread and that made her want to laugh. A crust of bread? A fat slice? A thin slice? Or had she cast away a loaf? Perhaps there were shoals of sprats standing upright on their tails in the water under the loaf and nibbling at it, or darting round and round in a circle, snatching and quarrelling while the loaf bobbed up and down--there were plenty of sprats just off the coast. Anyhow, her bread must be dreadfully soggy if it had been in the water for more than two years. "For thou shalt find it after many days!" Yes, but how many days? And if you did find it, if the sprats left even a crumb to be washed up on the beach, how would it taste, she wondered. How many days, how many days, how many Seabourne days, how many Ralph and Uncle John days; so secure, so decent, so colourless! The text said, "Many days;" it warned you not to grow impatient, it was like young Uncle John in the dining-room, taking it for granted that time didn't count--Uncle John had never been in a hurry. And yet they were beautiful words; she knew quite well what they meant, she was only pretending to misunderstand, it was her misplaced sense of humour.