y 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. Bri