am afraid there may not be room for it on that side of the fire----"
So all the way home, at intervals, she kept bemoaning the possible lack
of space for her chair.

Miss Ethel felt very tired. But at last they reached the gate of the
Cottage, and as they walked up the drive they saw that a man was at
work taking up the privet hedge. He was doing it badly, mauling the
fine roots in a way that made Mrs. Bradford for once almost energetic
in her annoyance.

"Don't look! I can't bear to look at our poor hedge," she said,
turning her head away.

Miss Ethel's glance rested indifferently on the man and the partially
destroyed hedge. "What does it matter?" she said, and walked on to the
front door.

"You mean, because we shall not be here?" said Mrs. Bradford uneasily,
for even she felt there was something a little uncomfortable in her
sister's voice and look.

But Miss Ethel's glance passed over the neat little lozenge-shaped
leaves which lay torn from their place but still clinging to the
branches, almost with indifference: then she went straight into the
hall, making no reply, and Mrs. Bradford followed slowly, filled with
the dull discomfort of the cat turned out of its basket. Her feeling
was different from Miss Ethel's--less acute--but she was not in the
least consoled by her vague knowledge that she was sharing this
experience with thousands of middle-aged men and women all over Europe.

_Chapter XIX_

_A Windy Morning_

It was the last week of the Thorhaven season, and a gale from the
south-west tore across the little town, blowing away all the remaining
visitors--excepting a few barnacles who had moved into the cheap rooms
or furnished houses, and intended to stay for the winter.

Miss Ethel heard the familiar sounds of windows rattling and chimneys
roaring as they do in an old house, but she was so used to them that
she never heeded; they formed part of the background of her life
without which, she vaguely apprehended, she would appear as baldly
incomplete as a figure cut out with sharp scissors from an old print.

But as she stood there on the landing she became gradually aware of
another noise with which she was not familiar, for the simple reason
that Ellen had never set the maid's door and window sufficiently wide
open in a high wind to produce a gale rushing through the house with
such a flap and clatter of blinds and curtains.

Miss Ethel frowned as she marched into the room for she s