woke her.  At one o’clock she went to sleep.  On Mondays she wrote out in her clear Totteridge hand, with its fine straight strokes, a list of library books, made up without distinction of all that were recommended in the Ladies’ Paper that came weekly to Worsted Skeynes.  Periodically Mr. Pendyce would hand her a list of his own, compiled out of the Times and the Field in the privacy of his study; this she sent too.

Thus was the household supplied with literature unerringly adapted to its needs; nor was it possible for any undesirable book to find its way into the house—­not that this would have mattered much to Mrs. Pendyce, for as she often said with gentle regret, “My dear, I have no time to read.”

This afternoon it was so warm that the bees were all around among the blossoms, and two thrushes, who had built in a yew-tree that watched over the Scotch garden, were in a violent flutter because one of their chicks had fallen out of the nest.  The mother bird, at the edge of the long orchard grass, was silent, trying by example to still the tiny creature’s cheeping, lest it might attract some large or human thing.

Mrs. Pendyce, sitting under the oldest cherry-tree, looked for the sound, and when she had located it, picked up the baby bird, and, as she knew the whereabouts of all the nests, put it back into its cradle, to the loud terror and grief of the parent birds.  She went back to the bench and sat down again.

She had in her soul something of the terror of the mother thrush.  The Maidens had been paying the call that preceded their annual migration to town, and the peculiar glow which Lady Maiden had the power of raising had not yet left her cheeks.  True, she had the comfort of the thought, ‘Ellen Maiden is so bourgeoise,’ but to-day it did not still her heart.

Accompanied by one pale daughter who never left her, and two pale dogs forced to run all the way, now lying under the carriage with their tongues out, Lady Maiden had come and stayed full time; and for three-quarters of that time she had seemed, as it were, labouring under a sense of duty unfulfilled; for the remaining quarter Mrs. Pendyce had laboured under a sense of duty fulfilled.

“My dear,” Lady Maiden had said, having told the pale daughter to go into the conservatory, “I’m the last person in the world to repeat gossip, as you know; but I think it’s only right to tell you that I’ve been hearing things.  You see, my boy Fred” (who would ultimately become Sir Frederick Maiden) “belongs to the same club as your son George—­the Stoics.  All young men belong there of course-I mean, if they’re anybody.  I’m sorry to say there’s no doubt about it; your son has been seen dining at—­perhaps I ought not to mention the name—­Blafard’s, with Mrs. Bellew.  I dare say you don’t know what sort of a place Blafard’s is—­a lot of little rooms where people go when they don’t want to be seen.  I’ve never been there, of course; but I can imagine it perfectly.  And not once, but frequently.  I thought I would speak to you, because I do think it’s so scandalous of her in her position.”