ng her a feed of oats on her return. Miggles did not
care for indoor pets, so that it was an extra pleasure to make friends
with Dinah, to rub her soft nose, and bequeath odd gifts of sugar.

Her informal riding-costume was composed of a dark green habit and a
felt hat of the same shade, which, being somewhat battered out of the
original shape, she had twisted into a Napoleonic tricorn, which proved
surprisingly becoming on her small, daintily poised head.

"I've never seen a riding-hat like that before. That's the very
_latest_ from Paris, I suppose, miss?" said Mrs Jones of the emporium;
and Vanna had not the heart to undeceive her.

Once or twice a week, instead of mounting to the downs, Vanna would turn
inland to pay a visit to Mrs Rendall. The old lady was not an
interesting personality, but she was lonely, which fact made perhaps the
strongest of all appeals to Vanna's sympathy at this period of her life.

It grew to be an accepted custom that these visits should be paid on
Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and as she trotted up the long avenue
leading to the house Vanna never failed to see the white-capped figure
at the library window watching for her approach. The conversation was
almost identically the same on each of these visits. Mrs Rendall would
discuss the weather of the last three days, inquire into Miss Miggs's
symptoms, relate accurately the behaviour of her own cough and the
tiresome rheumatic pains in her left shoulder, chronicle the progress in
the garden, and the delinquencies of her servant maids. Vanna seemed to
herself to do little more than murmur a conventional yes and no from
time to time; nevertheless Mrs Rendall invariably pleaded with her to
prolong her visit, and never failed to add to her farewell the urgent
reminder: "You'll come on Wednesday? You won't forget." If the visitor
chanced to turn her head at the bend of the avenue, the white-capped
figure was again at the window, watching for the last, the very last
glimpse of her retreating figure.

At the sight of that watching figure a faint realisation came to Vanna
of one of life's tragedies--the pathetic dependence of the old upon the
young; the detachment and indifference of youth to age. To herself
these weekly visits were a duty and, frankly speaking, a bore. To the
old woman, alone in her luxurious home, they formed the brightness and
amusement of life, the epochs upon which she lived in hope and
recollection.

"Po