what the portentous old woman who ruled alone in Etchingham
thought of these times--the portentous old woman who ruled, so they
said, the place with a rod of iron; who made herself unbearable to her
companions and had to fall back upon an unfortunate niece. I wondered
idly who the niece could be; certainly not a Granger of Etchingham, for
I was the only one of the breed. One of her own nieces, most probably.
Churchill had gone into the post-office, leaving me standing at the foot
of the sign-post. It was a pleasant summer day, the air very clear, the
place very slumbrous. I looked up the street at a pair of great stone
gate-posts, august, in their way, standing distinctly aloof from the
common houses, a little weather-stained, staidly lichened. At the top of
each column sat a sculptured wolf--as far as I knew, my own crest. It
struck me pleasantly that this must be the entrance of the Manor house.

The tall iron gates swung inward, and I saw a girl on a bicycle curve
out, at the top of the sunny street. She glided, very clear, small, and
defined, against the glowing wall, leaned aslant for the turn, and came
shining down toward me. My heart leapt; she brought the whole thing into
composition--the whole of that slumbrous, sunny street. The bright sky
fell back into place, the red roofs, the blue shadows, the red and blue
of the sign-board, the blue of the pigeons walking round my feet, the
bright red of a postman's cart. She was gliding toward me, growing and
growing into the central figure. She descended and stood close to me.

"You?" I said. "What blessed chance brought you here?"

"Oh, I am your aunt's companion," she answered, "her niece, you know."

"Then you _must_ be a cousin," I said.

"No; sister," she corrected, "I assure you it's sister. Ask anyone--ask
your aunt." I was braced into a state of puzzled buoyancy.

"But really, you know," I said. She was smiling, standing up squarely to
me, leaning a little back, swaying her machine with the motion of her
body.

"It's a little ridiculous, isn't it?" she said.

"Very," I answered, "but even at that, I don't see--. And I'm not
phenomenally dense."

"Not phenomenally," she answered.

"Considering that I'm not a--not a Dimensionist," I bantered. "But you
have really palmed yourself off on my aunt?"

"Really," she answered, "she doesn't know any better. She believes in me
immensely. I am such a real Granger, there never was a more typical one.
And we shak