"It's me" said Miriam emerging on a tiny landing and going through the open door of a low-ceiled lamplit room. "It's me it's me" she repeated from the middle of the floor. An eager face was turned towards her from a thicket of soft dull wavy hair. She gazed vaguely. The small slippered feet planted firmly high up against the lintel the sweep of the red dressing-gown, the black patch of the Mudie book with its yellow label, the small ringed hand upon it, the outflung arm and hand the little wreath of smoke about the end of the freshly lit cigarette, the cup of coffee on the little table under the lamp, the dim shapes about the room lit by the flickering blaze.... Miriam smiled into the smiling steel blue of the eyes turned towards her and waited smiling for the silver reed of tone to break again. "I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you. Sit down and shut the door my child.... I don't mind which you do first, but--do--them--both," she tinkled, stretching luxuriously and bringing her feet to the ground with a swing. Miriam closed the door. "Can I take off my things?" "Of course child ... take them all off; you know I admire you most draped in a towel." "I've got such awful feet" said Miriam hugging the compliment as she dropped her things in a distant arm-chair. "It's not your feet, it's your extraordinary shoes." "M." "How beautiful you look. You put on ties better than anyone I know. I wish I could wear things draped round my neck." Miriam sat down in the opposite wicker chair. "Isn't it cold--my feet are freezing; it's raining." "Take off your shoes." Miriam got off her shoes and propped them in the fender to dry. "What is that book?" "Eden Philpotts's 'Children of the Mist'" fluted the voice reverently. "Read it?" "No" said Miriam expectantly. The eager face turned to an eager profile with eyes brooding into the fire. "He's so wonderful" mused the voice and Miriam watched eagerly. Mag read books--for their own sake; and could judge them and compare them with other books by the same author ... but all this wonderful knowledge made her seem wistful; knowing all about books and plays and strangely wistful and regretful; the things that made her eyes blaze and made her talk reverently or in indignant defence always seemed sad in the end ... wistful hero worship ... raving about certain writers and actors as if she did not know they were people. "He's so wonderful" went on the voice with its perpetual modulations "he gets all the atmosphere of the west country--perfectly. You _live_ there while you're reading him." With a little chill sense of Mag in this wonderful room alone, living in the west country and herself coming in as an interruption, Miriam noted the name of the novelist in her mind ... there was something about it, she knew she would not forget it; soft and numb with a slight clatter and hiss at the end, a rain-storm, the atmosphere of Devonshire and the mill-wheel.