What Mrs. Fisher was thinking was how much surprised they would be if she told them of her very odd and exciting sensation of going to come out all over buds.  They would think she was an extremely silly old woman, and so would she have thought as lately as two days ago; but the bud idea was becoming familiar to her, she was more apprivoisee now, as dear Matthew Arnold used to say, and though it would undoubtedly be best if one’s appearance and sensations matched, yet supposing they did not—­and one couldn’t have everything—­was it not better to feel young somewhere rather than old everywhere?  Time enough to be old everywhere again, inside as well as out, when she got back to her sarcophagus in Prince of Wales Terrace.

Yet it is probable that without the arrival of Briggs Mrs. Fisher would have gone on secretly fermenting in her shell.  The others only knew her as severe.  It would have been more than her dignity could bear suddenly to relax—­especially towards the three young women.  But now came the stranger Briggs, a stranger who at once took to her as no young man had taken to her in her life, and it was the coming of Briggs and his real and manifest appreciation—­for just such a grandmother, thought Briggs, hungry for home life and its concomitants, would he have liked to have—­that released Mrs. Fisher from her shell; and here she was at last, as Lotty had predicted, pleased, good-humoured and benevolent.

Lotty, coming back half an hour later from her picnic, and following the sound of voices into the top garden in the hope of still finding tea, saw at once what had happened, for Mrs. Fisher at that very moment was laughing.

“She’s burst her cocoon,” thought Lotty; and swift as she was in all her movements, and impulsive, and also without any sense of propriety to worry and delay her, she bent over the back of Mrs. Fisher’s chair and kissed her.

“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Fisher, starting violently, for such a thing had not happened to her since Mr. Fisher’s earlier days, and then only gingerly.  This kiss was a real kiss, and rested on Mrs. Fisher’s cheek a moment with a strange, soft sweetness.

When she saw whose it was, a deep flush spread over her face.  Mrs. Wilkins kissing her and the kiss feeling so affectionate. . .  Even if she had wanted to she could not in the presence of the appreciative Mr. Briggs resume her cast-off severity and begin rebuking again; but she did not want to.  Was it possible Mrs. Wilkins like her—­ had liked her all this time, while she had been so much disliking her herself?  A queer little trickle of warmth filtered through the frozen defences of Mrs. Fisher’s heart.  Somebody young kissing her—­somebody young wanting to kiss her. . .  Very much flushed, she watched the strange creature, apparently quite unconscious she had done anything extraordinary, shaking hands with Mr. Briggs, on her husband’s introducing him, and immediately embarking on the friendliest conversation with him, exactly as if she had known him all her life.  What a strange creature; what a very strange creature.  It was natural, she being so strange, that one should have, perhaps, misjudged her. . .