an allowance so that you can retire from business.'

'Oh, that's Sir Herbert all over,' said Mrs Griffith, greasily--she knew
nothing about him but his name!

'How much do you think you could live on?' asked Daisy.

Mrs Griffith looked at George and then at Edith. What should they ask?
Edith and George exchanged a glance; they were in agonies lest Mrs
Griffith should demand too little.

'Well,' said that lady, at last, with a little cough of uncertainty, 'in
our best years we used to make four pounds a week out of the
business--didn't we, George?'

'Quite that!' answered he and his wife, in a breath.

'Then, shall I tell my husband that if he allows you five pounds a week
you will be able to live comfortably?'

'Oh, that's very handsome!' said Mrs Griffith.

'Very well,' said Daisy, getting up.

'You're not going?' cried her mother.

'Yes.'

'Well, that is hard. After not seeing you all these years. But you know
best, of course!'

'There's no train up to London for two hours yet,' said George.

'No; I want to take a walk through Blackstable.'

'Oh, you'd better drive, in your position.'

'I prefer to walk.'

'Shall George come with you?'

'I prefer to walk alone.'

Then Mrs Griffith again enveloped her daughter in her arms, and told her
she had always loved her and that she was her only daughter; after
which, Daisy allowed herself to be embraced by her brother and his wife.
Finally they shut the door on her and watched her from the window walk
slowly down the High Street.

'If you'd asked it, I believe she'd have gone up to six quid a week,'
said George.

XV

Daisy walked down the High Street slowly, looking at the houses she
remembered, and her lips quivered a little; at every step smells blew
across to her full of memories--the smell of a tannery, the blood smell
of a butcher's shop, the sea-odour from a shop of fishermen's
clothes.... At last she came on to the beach, and in the darkening
November day she looked at the booths she knew so well, the boats drawn
up for the winter, whose names she knew, whose owners she had known from
her childhood; she noticed the new villas built in her absence. And she
looked at the grey sea; a sob burst from her; but she was very strong,
and at once she recovered herself. She turned back and slowly walked up
the High Street again to the station. The lamps were lighted now, and
the street looked as it had looked in her memory through the years;
between