it been possible; and there was even no question of their all
joining her at Robin Redbreast, though but for a short visit, for in
November the fiat went forth which each winter she had secretly for some
years past been dreading--she must not remain in England. For her
chronic bronchitis was on her again, and a premature taste of winter in
the late autumn threatened for a week or two to turn this into something
worse.

'For myself,' she wrote, 'I would rather stay at home and take the risk,
but I suppose it would be wrong, though really at my age I have little
sympathy with that excessive clinging to life one sees where one would
little expect it. But there is nothing to detain me here specially, and
it may be that I shall benefit by the change. I want to choose one of
the winter places I was so happy at more than once long ago, with _your_
mother, when she and I travelled together with my parents.'

For the letter was to Mrs Mildmay.

And a fortnight or so later came another, which threw great excitement
into the house in St Wilfred's Place, where the children were doing
their best to give something of a festive and country look to the rather
dark rooms with the help of plenty of holly and mistletoe, which had
come in a Christmas hamper from Robin Redbreast, by Lady Myrtle's
orders, though she was no longer there. For by this time it was
Christmas Eve.

This new letter was from abroad. The old lady was already settled in her
winter quarters. Which of the many southern resorts she had chosen
matters little, as it is no part of this simple story to describe
continental towns or foreign travel. And in this particular case there
would be little interest in either, seeing that these places are so well
known nowadays to the mass of English folk of the well-to-do classes,
that accounts of them are pretty sure to be monotonous repetitions. We
will call the spot selected 'Basse.'

Lady Myrtle wrote cheerfully. She was better, and she was enjoying, as
old people learn to do, the chastened pleasure of recalling happy days
in the scenes she was now revisiting.

'It is all wonderfully little changed,' she wrote. 'I drive along the
same roads, and walk slowly up and down the same terraces, where Lady
Jacinth and I used to talk together by the hour in our light-hearted
girlhood. I even fancy I recognise some of the shops we pass, for I am
able to stroll about the quieter streets a little with the help of my
good Clayton's arm.