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lecture to the Morning Post for “The Trivet,” but with no result. I heard from Mabel, yesterday. Her old lady seems to be breaking up, poor thing, and Mabel is beginning to be a little anxious about the Future. Violet writes that she is getting her girls on capitally at hockey and that her school is to play Bradley this term.’
    Miss Martin put down her pen and stretched her hand and contemplated the schoolroom. Mabel and Flossie on the mantelpiece, Violet on a carved bracket. The men were in her bedroom. Captain Martin (retired) by her bedside, and Mr Francis on the dressing-table. Miss Martin’s chin trembled. Those photographs . . . she could see the studio in the avenue which they had all attended when they realised that they must, as a home, disperse; knew her own portrait was represented in the two other bedrooms she would never see: in Bournemouth (Mabel), in Hampshire (Violet). Flossie’s alone was dearly familiar, but the Pater must have a daughter at home. It was cheaper than a second servant. He would be lost without her. She knew his ways. The extra frame – Mr Francis, was peculiar to Agatha, and Miss Martin began to dwell on him, once more. He had never actually proposed (men, somehow, didn’t do that), but there had been, not quite an understanding, perhaps, but much mutual regard, and, on one side, a passion of admiration. But, of course, a junior curate’s stipend . . . the Pater’s pension . . .
    Mr Francis: so unlike the humorous paper conception of a curate. Always a joke. (‘And where is Miss Betty? I begin to suspect she is all my eye!’)
    Manly . . .
    From the bedrooms a flight below came voices.
    DEIRDRE’S: ‘What’s Toddy doing now?’
    MRS CARNE’S: ‘Asleep. It’s late. Hurry into bed, lamb.’
    DEIRDRE’S: ‘With one ivory claw against his little face!’ ( Sounds of tooth-brushing ).
    KATRINE’S: ‘What are his pyjamas like?’
    MRS CARNE’S: ‘Blue and white, from Swan and Edgar.’
    DEIRDRE’S: ‘Darling! Can you see Toddy getting his things there!’
    MRS CARNE’S: ‘I expect he gets them by the half-dozen from the place in St James’s Street where he bought the dressing-gown last summer that was too long for him, and he was so annoyed with us for offering to shorten it.’
    Miss Martin sighed.

7
    We were to leave for Yorkshire three days after Katrine’s letter came. Miss Martin was to have a fortnight in Cheltenham and then join us. We’ve told her about Katrine; what use trying to conceal it? I was honestly glad the Martin, at least, was going to be happy, and regardless of possible consequences, I sought her company. But the creature, cornered, simply isn’t there. Oh well, I understand. Oh, how I understand!
    I went into the schoolroom to try and outface the dismantled and trunkish atmosphere everywhere else, but it’s no use. That atmosphere is all over the house.
    Toddington is still on circuit, and I wonder what his wife’s plans are? He’s in Bristol, so one won’t even see him before one leaves, and then he gets ten weeks’ vacation before the Michaelmas Term begins. Mother says he’s sure to ring us up a lot, in Yorkshire, as he would if we were in America. He must have got a feminine streak in him, to be so understanding, but all the nicest men have, just as all the best women have a dash of masculine in their make-up. I hope Mildred has, too, but I never felt we really knew her, though we came nearer ever since she kicked her shoes off and said ‘whatever.’
    Katrine and I were sitting in the library the day before we left town, and I began to wonder if one might talk about everything, for she had gone about the house dreadfully bright for two days, now, and prompted the Martin to remark to me that she was taking it wonderfully well . . .
    I caught Katrine’s eye.
    ‘Hang it, K, that Dramatic School isn’t the only pebble on the beach. You’ve had a lot of fun out of it, but it’s an awful time-waster. There are shorter cuts than