prowess in the East, hung above Chinese teapots, whose sides were
riveted by little gold stitches, and the precious teapots, again, stood
upon bookcases containing the complete works of William Cowper and
Sir Walter Scott. The thread of sound, issuing from the telephone, was
always colored by the surroundings which received it, so it seemed to
Katharine. Whose voice was now going to combine with them, or to strike
a discord?

"Whose voice?" she asked herself, hearing a man inquire, with great
determination, for her number. The unfamiliar voice now asked for Miss
Hilbery. Out of all the welter of voices which crowd round the far end
of the telephone, out of the enormous range of possibilities, whose
voice, what possibility, was this? A pause gave her time to ask herself
this question. It was solved next moment.

"I've looked out the train.... Early on Saturday afternoon would suit me
best.... I'm Ralph Denham.... But I'll write it down...."

With more than the usual sense of being impinged upon the point of a
bayonet, Katharine replied:

"I think I could come. I'll look at my engagements.... Hold on."

She dropped the machine, and looked fixedly at the print of the
great-uncle who had not ceased to gaze, with an air of amiable
authority, into a world which, as yet, beheld no symptoms of the Indian
Mutiny. And yet, gently swinging against the wall, within the black
tube, was a voice which recked nothing of Uncle James, of China teapots,
or of red velvet curtains. She watched the oscillation of the tube, and
at the same moment became conscious of the individuality of the house in
which she stood; she heard the soft domestic sounds of regular existence
upon staircases and floors above her head, and movements through the
wall in the house next door. She had no very clear vision of Denham
himself, when she lifted the telephone to her lips and replied that
she thought Saturday would suit her. She hoped that he would not say
good-bye at once, although she felt no particular anxiety to attend to
what he was saying, and began, even while he spoke, to think of her own
upper room, with its books, its papers pressed between the leaves of
dictionaries, and the table that could be cleared for work. She replaced
the instrument, thoughtfully; her restlessness was assuaged; she
finished her letter to Cassandra without difficulty, addressed the
envelope, and fixed the stamp with her usual quick decision.

A bunch of anemones caugh