They drank their tea in the bedroom sometimes, orin the study; breaking off work at midday with thesmudge on their faces, and their old hands claspedand cramped with the broom handles. Flopped onchairs they contemplated now the magnificent con-quest over taps and bath; now the more arduous,more partial triumph over long rows of books, blackas ravens once, now white-stained, breeding palemushrooms and secreting furtive spiders. Oncemore, as she felt the tea warm in her, the telescopefitted itself to Mrs McNab’s eyes, and in a ring oflight she saw the old gentleman, lean as a rake,wagging his head, as she came up with the washing,talking to himself, she supposed, on the lawn. Henever noticed her. Some said he was dead; somesaid she was dead. Which was it? Mrs Bastdidn’t know for certain either. The young gentle-man was dead. That she was sure. She had readhis name in the papers.

There was the cook now, Mildred, Marian, somesuch name as that—a red-headed woman, quick-tempered like all her sort, but kind, too, if you knewthe way with her. Many a laugh they had had

together. She saved a plate of soup for Maggie; a

bite of ham, sometimes; whatever was over. They

lived well in those days. They had everything they