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several of the smaller boys who went to Penridge school. She gazed more closely at the small face and for the first time it occurred to her that this boy was her stepson. A little thrill of tenderness stirred in her.
    â€˜Here he is again,’ said Ben, watching her anxiously. ‘He’s older here. This was taken about five years ago.’
    He paused. Kate with her dark, brooding browswas studying the photograph intently. The old man waited for her to speak, but Kate continued to gaze in silence, as if lost in a dream. He laid a hand on her arm.
    â€˜What do you think of him?’ he asked.
    â€˜He’s a pretty boy,’ she said in a soft, restrained, eager voice. ‘Is it like what he is now?’
    Ben inspected the portrait critically. ‘Yes,’ he said judicially with his head on one side. ‘Yes, it’s like him all right, though he’s grown into a young man now, of course.’
    Kate looked up from her inspection. ‘What colour is his hair?’ she asked.
    â€˜Reddish,’ said Ben. ‘A kind of red gold, you know. Like his Mother’s was, only brighter.’ He studied the portrait again. ‘He’s a fine lad,’ he said warmly. ‘The best of the bunch.’ He turned with one of his alert movements to Kate. ‘Do you like him?’
    â€˜Yes,’ answered Kate, ‘I do.’
    â€˜I knew you would.’ The old man was as reassured and happy as if the two had actually met.

VI
    Christmas had come and gone and the new year was now some weeks old. The keen frosts of January, which froze the water in the horse-trough to a solid block of crystal and hung the low eaves of the barn with a glassy fringe of icicles, had yielded to a rainy February.
    Kate sat by the parlour window: an open book lay in her lap. It was raining, and at intervals showers of drops were driven against the panes till every pane flowed like a sheet of rapidly melting ice. Somewhere out in the yard water dripped from a leaking gutter with a continuous wet pit-pit-patting. The clank of a pail and then the hard ring of a poker knocking against the iron bars of the grate came from the kitchen, and, from outside, the sound of horses’ hoofs. Peter, the boy, his red face shining with wet and water dripping from the peak of his cap, led the two bays past the window. Their great heads nodded across the panes; the rain-soaked necks gleamed like bronze.
    Kate’s eyes wandered round the parlour, delaying for a moment on each detail - the brass candlesticks on the mantelshelf, the huge arch of the beam over the great open hearth, and the other beams that pressed down from the ceiling upon the low room. It was a friendly room, and it had a pleasant smell made up of many smells — scents of old timber, burninglogs, a hint of paraffin and the suggestion of some vague aromatic spice. It was a room in which it was not easy to feel lonely, for there was about it a sense of calm, pervasive life, as if the spirits of all the serene countryfolk who had once lived and moved in it still filled it with their comfortable presence.
    And yet Kate did not feel happy as she sat there surveying the old place. A small, tight chord of sadness vibrated from time to time in her breast. It seemed to her unnatural to be sitting there while the endless business of the farm moved forward on its quiet, unceasing way. She herself was the only idle creature in the place. What time could it be? The clock that hung near the door said five minutes to ten. How strange that she should not have known the time. At Penridge the routine of her day was so allotted that she could always tell, by whatever she happened to be doing, what time it was. But when you sit idle, time stands still, or rather life stands still and time moves on and leaves life behind. All at The Grange, except Kate, had their appointed activities, which kept them busy, kept them alive. She alone was being left behind. During all the