you?' she experienced a faint, almost physical shock. He was different
after all, and now she did not know whether to be glad or sorry.
Unchanged, she need not have given him another thought; subtly
altered, she was bound to probe into the how and why. He sat beside
her on the old-fashioned couch with a curled head, and his thirteen
stone descending heavily on the springs sent up her light weight with
a perceptible jerk.

'Clumsy boy!' Mrs. Sales exclaimed playfully.

Rose laughed. 'It's like the old see-saw. I was always in the air and
you on the ground. Is it there still--near the pigsties?'

'Yes, still there.' But this threatened to become too exclusive a
conversation, and Rose tried to do her share in more general topics.

Caroline, talking of the advantage of Radstowe, regretting the greater
gaiety of the past, when Sophia and she were belles, was adding
gratuitous advice on the management of husbands and some information
on the ways of men. Mrs. Sales laughed and glanced now and then at
Francis, but whether he responded Rose could not see, unless she
turned her head. He ought certainly to have been smiling at so pretty
a person, wrinkling his eyes in the way he had and straightening the
mouth which was sullen in repose. Yet she was almost sure he was doing
the minimum demanded of politeness, almost sure he was thinking of
herself and was conscious of her nearness, just as she, for the first
time, was physically conscious of his.

She rose, saying, 'May I look out of the window? I always liked this
view of the garden.' And having gazed out and made the necessary