long delayed she often prayed.  The house was poor, and she was miserable, but any place was good enough to suffer in.  So she said when she rose and dragged herself downstairs to do a little cooking; and the same thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour, furnished with what a few pounds could buy—­a paraffin-lamp, a round table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours.  From the barren little passage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative.  The Major had impressed his personality upon the house.  Everything looked as if it had been scraped.  There was a time when Mrs Shepherd noticed the barrenness of her life; but she had grown accustomed to it, and she waited for the Major in the terrible armchair, glad when she heard his step, almost happy when he sat by her and told her what was happening ‘at home’.

He took her hand and asked her how she was.  ’You are looking very tired, Alice.’

’Yes, I’m a little tired.  I have been working all the morning.  I made up my room, and then I went out to the butcher’s and bought a piece of steak.  I have made you such a nice pudding for your lunch; I hope you will like it.’

’There’s not much fear about my liking any beefsteak pudding you make, dear; I never knew anyone who could make one like you.  But you should not tire yourself—­and just as you are beginning to get better.’

Mrs Shepherd smiled and pressed her husband’s hand.  The conversation fell.  At the end of a long silence Mrs Shepherd said:  ’What has happened to trouble you, dear?  I know something has, I can see it by your face.’

Then the Major told how unpleasantly his sisters had answered him when he had ventured to suggest that they saw far too much of their new neighbours, who were merely common sort of Londoners, and never would be received by the county.  ’I’m sure that someone must have told them of my visits here; I’m sure they suspect something ...  Girls are very sharp nowadays.’

’I am sorry, but it is no fault of mine.  I rarely leave the house, and I never walk in the principal streets if I can possibly help it.’

’I know, dear, I know that no one can be more careful than you; but as people are beginning to smell a rat notwithstanding all our precautions, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to go back to London.’

’Oh, you don’t think it will be necessary to go back to London, do you?  The place suits the child so well, and it is so nice to see you almost every day; and it is such a comfort when you are not here to know you are only a few miles away; and from the top of the hill the trees of the park are visible, and whenever I feel well enough I walk there and think of the time our Nellie will be the mistress of all those broad acres.’