oked in some way as if it still
belonged to the easy-shirt-sleeved winter time, when Thorhaven was not
expecting visitors. At last a little brisk woman with a neat figure
came up to the turnstile, and Caroline greeted her with just that
surprising warmth shown to casual acquaintances by stall-holders at a
bazaar. "A season-ticket? Certainly. A pity not to get all the good
out of it you can. Some people silly enough to wait until the season
is half over and then pay just the same----" But the woman appreciated
this cordiality at its true worth and was unresponsive. "So you've got
the job. They'd be sorry to part with Maggie." Then pursing her lips,
she placed her season ticket in her purse, and said with condescending
asperity: "I want to go through, please."

So Caroline, thus reminded, hastily released the turnstile with her
knee from within, and felt momentarily abashed. After a while,
however, a solitary visitor approached the little window, and she was
doubly brisk and official to make up for it.

"Day-ticket? But are you staying a week? If so, you'll find it much
more to your advantage----" Until the visitor, who did not really want
a weekly ticket at all, but happened to be of that ever-growing class
which is cowed at once by any sign of bureaucratic authority, did as
Caroline suggested.

But little by little this first eagerness wore off, and by the time she
returned from the tea interval--during which her place had been taken
by the girl who acted as "supply"--she had already begun to show faint
beginnings of the slightly contemptuous, detached air of the official.
She was pleasant still, but as a favour, and with the whole power of
the Thorhaven Council at her back "Three in family, I think? I
suppose you take one for Mildred?" And she expected Mrs. Creddle's
neighbour to feel a little flattered by her remembering the size of the
family.

But though justly irritated by that "Three in family, I think"--when
Caroline had pulled pigtails with Mildred only yesterday, as it
were--the good woman was actually pleased when Caroline "held up" a
stout person in a fur coat and a motor veil to add pleasantly: "I
suppose you are expecting visitors this week?" Which remark is the
recognized conversational small change in Thorhaven, during spring and
summer, scarcely more personal than the "Fine day!" of the country
labourers who live in the still untouched country beyond the Cottage.

But if Mrs. Credd