You could hear feet, feet in heavy soled boots, clanking on the drive
that ringed the grass-plot and the sundial; the eager feet of a young
man. Fanny turned her head, listening.

"There _is_ Ralph," she said. "Come in, Ralph!"

The young man stood in the low, narrow doorway, filling it with his
slender height and breadth. He looked past Fanny, warily, into the far
corner of the room, and when his eyes found Barbara at her bureau they
smiled.

"Oh, _come_ in," Fanny said. "He isn't here. He won't be till Friday.
This is Ralph Bevan, Barbara; and this is Barbara Madden, Ralph."

He bowed, still smiling, as if he saw something irrepressibly amusing in
her presence there.

"Yes," said Fanny to the smile. "Your successor."

"I congratulate you, Miss Madden."

"Don't be an ironical beast. She's just said she couldn't bear to think
she'd done you out of your job."

"Well, I couldn't," said Barbara.

"That's very nice of you. But you didn't do me out of anything. It was
the act of God."

"It was Horatio's act. Not that Miss Madden meant any reflection on his