difficult; it's only a bit up and down and roundabout."

"I couldn't think, Mr. Britling, of putting you to that much trouble."

"It's no trouble. I want a day off, and I'm dying to take Gladys--"

"Gladys?" said Mr. Direck with sudden hope.

"That's my name for the lil' car. I'm dying to take her for something
like a decent run. I've only had her out four times altogether, and I've
not got her up yet to forty miles. Which I'm told she ought to do
easily. We'll consider that settled."

For the moment Mr. Direck couldn't think of any further excuse. But it
was very clear in his mind that something must happen; he wished he knew
of somebody who could send a recall telegram from London, to prevent him
committing himself to the casual destinies of Mr. Britling's car again.
And then another interest became uppermost in his mind.

"You'd hardly believe me," he said, "if I told you that that Miss Corner
of yours has a quite extraordinary resemblance to a miniature I've got
away there in America of a cousin of my maternal grandmother's. She
seems a very pleasant young lady."

But Mr. Britling supplied no further information about Miss Corner.

"It must be very interesting," he said, "to come over here and pick up
these American families of yours on the monuments and tombstones. You
know, of course, that district south of Evesham where every other church
monument bears the stars and stripes, the arms of departed Washingtons.
I doubt though if you'll still find the name about there. Nor will you
find many Hinkinsons in Market Saffron. But lots of this country here
has five or six hundred-year-old families still flourishing. That's why
Essex is so much more genuinely Old England than Surrey, say, or Kent.
Round here you'll find Corners and Fairlies, and then you get Capels,
and then away down towards Dunmow and Braintree Maynards and Byngs. And
there are oaks and hornbeams in the park about Claverings that have
echoed to the howling of wolves and the clank of men in armour. All the
old farms here are moated--because of the wolves. Claverings itself is
Tudor, and rather fine too. And the cottages still wear thatch...."

He reflected. "Now if you went south of London instead of northward it's
all different. You're in a different period, a different society. You're
in London suburbs right down to the sea. You'll find no genuine estates
left, not of our deep-rooted familiar sort. You'll find millionaires and
that sort of peop