‘I can’t take it now, my dear.  Give it me afterwards.’

‘I think Uncle Meshach’s a horrid old thing!’ said Ethel.

‘My dear girl!  Why?’

’Oh!  I do.  I’m glad he’s only father’s uncle and not ours.  I do hate that name.  Fancy being called Meshach!’

‘That isn’t uncle’s fault, anyhow,’ said Leonora.

’You always stick up for him, mother.  I believe it’s because he flatters you, and says you look younger than any of us.’  Ethel’s tone was half roguish, half resentful.

Leonora gave a short unsteady laugh.  She knew well that her age was plainly written beneath her eyes, at the corners of her mouth, under her chin, at the roots of the hair above her ears, and in her cold, confident gaze.  Youth!  She would have forfeited all her experience, her knowledge, and the charm of her maturity, to recover the irrecoverable!  She envied the woman by her side, and envied her because she was lightsome, thoughtless, kittenish, simple, unripe.  For a brief moment, vainly coveting the ineffable charm of Ethel’s immaturity, she had a sharp perception of the obscure mutual antipathy which separates one generation from the next.  As the cob rattled into Hillport, that aristocratic and plutocratic suburb of the town, that haunt of exclusiveness, that retreat of high life and good tone, she thought how commonplace, vulgar, and petty was the opulent existence within those tree-shaded villas, and that she was doomed to droop and die there, while her girls, still unfledged, might, if they had the sense to use their wings, fly away....  Yet at the same time it gratified her to reflect that she and hers were in the picture, and conformed to the standards; she enjoyed the admiration which the sight of herself and Ethel and the expensive cob and cart and accoutrements must arouse in the punctilious and stupid breast of Hillport.

She was picking flowers for the table from the vivid borders of the lawn, when Ethel ran into the garden from the drawing-room.  Bran, the St. Bernard, was loose and investigating the turf.

‘Mother, the letter from Uncle Meshach.’

Leonora took the soiled envelope, and handing over the flowers to Ethel, crossed the lawn and sat down on the rustic seat, facing the house.  The dog followed her, and with his great paw demanded her attention, but she abruptly dismissed him.  She thought it curiously characteristic of Uncle Meshach that he should write her a letter on her fortieth birthday; she could imagine the uncouth mixture of wit, rude candour, and wisdom with which he would greet her; his was a strange and sinister personality, but she knew that he admired her.  The note was written in Meshach’s scraggy and irregular hand, in three lines starting close to the top of half a sheet of note paper.  It ran:  ’Dear Nora, I hear young Twemlow is come back from America.  You had better see as your John looks out for himself.’  There was nothing else, no signature.