'I'm sure we all look very nice,' Caroline said suddenly, the very
remark she had made when they went to the haymaking party, 'though you
do look rather like a widow, Rose--a widow, getting over it very
comfortably, as they do--as they do!'

'I'm glad I look so interesting,' Rose murmured.

'Oh, interesting, always. Yes.'

They were jogging along the road bordered by the high smooth wall,
despairingly efficient, guarding treasures bought with gold; and the
tall elm-trees looked over it as though they wanted to escape. The
murmuring in their branches seemed to be of discontent, and the birds
singing in them had a taunting note. The road mounted a little and the
wall went with it, backed by the imprisoned trees. But at last, at the
cross-roads, the wall turned and the road went on without it. There
were open fields now on either hand, the property of Francis Sales,
and another mile brought the carriage to the opening of the grassy
track where Rose liked to think she had left her youth, but the road
went round on the other side of the larch woods, and when these were
passed Sales Hall came into sight.

'I always think,' Caroline said, 'it's a pity this beautiful avenue
hasn't a better setting. Mere fields, and open to the road! It's
undignified. It ought to have been a park.'

'With a high wall all round it,' Rose suggested.

'Exactly,' Caroline agreed. She was touching her fringe, giving little