In a cottage on the common, an old one added to by the local architect, with a front garden and a red-tiled path, dwelt Mrs. Oldrieve in entire happiness, and her daughter in discontent. And this was through no peevish or disagreeable traits in Zora's nature. If we hear Guy Fawkes was fretful in the Little-Ease, we are not pained by Guy Fawkes's lack of Christian resignation. When the Vicar and the Literary Man from London had gone, Zora threw open the window and let the soft autumn air flood the room. Mrs. Oldrieve drew her woolen shawl around her lean shoulders. "I'm afraid you quite snubbed Mr. Rattenden, just when he was saying one of his cleverest things." "He said it to the wrong person, mother. I'm neither a faded life nor am I going to be laid away in lavender. Do I look like it?" She moved across the room, swiftly, and stood in the slanting light from the window, offering herself for inspection. Nothing could be less like a faded life than the magnificent, broad-hipped, full-bosomed woman that met her mother's gaze. Her hair was auburn, her eyes brown with gold flecks, her lips red, her cheeks clear and young. She was cast, physically, in heroic mold, a creature of dancing blood and color and warmth. Disparaging tea-parties called her an Amazon. The Vicar's wife regarded her as too large and flaring and curvilinear for reputable good looks. She towered over Nunsmere. Her presence disturbed the sedateness of the place. She was a wrong note in its harmony. Mrs. Oldrieve sighed. She was small and colorless. Her husband, a wild explorer, a tornado of a man, had been killed by a buffalo. She was afraid that Zora took after her father. Her younger daughter Emmy had also inherited some of the Oldrieve restlessness and had gone on the stage. She was playing now in musical comedy in London. "I don't see why you should not be happy here, Zora," she remarked, "but if you want to go, you must. I used to say the same to your poor, dear father." "I've been very good, haven't I?" said Zora. "I've been the model young widow and lived as demurely as if my heart were breaking with sorrow. But now, I can't stand it any longer. I'm going out to see the world." "You'll soon marry again, dear, and that's one comfort." Zora brought her hands down passionately to her sides. "Never. Never--do you hear, mother? Never. I'm going out into the world, to get to the heart of the life I've never known. I'm going to live." "I don't see how you are going to 'live,' dear, without a man to take care of you," said Mrs. Oldrieve, on whom there occasionally flashed an eternal verity. "I hate men. I hate the touch of them--the very sight of them. I'm going to have nothing more to do with them for the rest of my natural life. My dear mother!" and her voice broke, "haven't I had enough to do with men and marriage?" "All men aren't like Edward Middlemist," Mrs. Oldrieve argued as she counted the rows of her knitting.