, was promised by it, as by the low brick farm where she called
for the key.

But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young
person received her. "Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs.
Wilcox, auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to
your little place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to
direct you?" Followed by: "Of course, auntie does not generally look
after your place; she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something
exceptional. It gives her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her
time there. My husband says to me sometimes, 'Where's auntie?' I say,
'Need you ask? She's at Howards End.' Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox,
could I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for
you?"

Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her gentility in
the eyes of Miss Avery's niece.

"I cannot let you go on alone. Now don't. You really mustn't. I
will direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat.
Now"--roguishly--"Mrs. Wilcox, don't you move while I'm gone."

Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which the
touch of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked in keeping,
though they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior. Here had
lived an elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country
which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver
sides of life, the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love,
have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields. All was not
sadness. The sun was shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables
on the budding guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously
in heaps of golden straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that
surprised Margaret, and ended by giving her a feeling of completeness.
In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see
it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth,
connect--connect without bitterness until all men are brothers. But her
thoughts were interrupted by the return of Miss Avery's niece, and were
so tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.

It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due explanations,
they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by innumerable
chickens, who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and
maternal sow. She did not know what animals were co