of Sapps Court, who came there from Skillicks.

What is that comely countrywoman on the road to old Mrs. Prichard? What
was old Mrs. Prichard to her, fifty-odd years ago, before she drew
breath? What, when that strong hand, a baby's then, tugged at those
silver locks, then golden?

CHAPTER VI

HOW OLD MAISIE RECEIVED A VISIT FROM HER DAUGHTER RUTH, AND REMADE
HER ACQUAINTANCE. HOW RUTH STAYED TO TEA. OF HER RESEMBLANCE TO
POMONA. OF DAVE'S CONFUSION, LAST YEAR, BETWEEN HIS TWO HONORARY
GRANNIES. OF MAGIC MUSIC, AND HOW AGGRAVATED AN ANGEL MIGHT HAVE
BEEN, WHO PLAYED, FOR DESTINY TO GUESS. HOW OLD MAISIE DIDN'T GO TO
SLEEP, AND POMONA MADE TOAST. OF A LOG, AND SOME LICHENS. HOW A
LITTLE BEETLE GOT BURNT ALIVE. AND POSSIBLY THE SERVANTS WERE NOT
QUARRELLING. HOW OLD MAISIE HEARD HERSELF CALLED "A PLAGUY OLD
CAT." MRS. MASHAM'S DUPLICITY. HOW OLD MAISIE WISHED FOR HER OWN
DAUGHTER, UNAWARES

Old Maisie had a difficulty in walking, owing to rheumatism. But this
had improved since her promotion from the diet of Sapps Court to that of
Cavendish Square; and later, of the Towers. So much so, that she would
often walk about the room, for change; and had even gone cautiously on
the garden-terrace, keeping near the house; which was possible, as
Francis Quarles had lodged on a ground-floor when he gave his name to
the room she occupied.

So, this afternoon, after wondering for some time whose voices those
were she heard, variously, in the several passages and antechambers of
the servants' quarters, and deciding that one broad provincial accent
was a native's, and the other, a softer and sweeter one, that of one of
the inhabitants of Strides Cottage, she could not be sure which, she got
up slowly from her chair by the fire, and made her way to the window, to
see the better the little that was left of the sunlight.

Was that cold red disk, going oval in the colder grey of the mist that
rose from the darkening land, the selfsame remorseless sun that, one
Christmas Day that she remembered well, blazed so over Macquarie that
the awkward well-handle, the work of a convict on ticket-of-leave, who
had started a forge near by, grew so hot it all but singed the sheep's
wool she wrapped round it to protect her hands? So hot that her husband,
even when the sun was as low as this, could light his pipe with a
burning-glass--a telescope lens whose tube had gone astray, to lead a
us