o long, low
dependencies, apparently, and, as it seemed, there were to be terraces
and leveled lawns all about it; a great deal of clearing work as well
as building work would, however, be necessary before the whole thing
could take shape and explain itself properly. She stood outside one of
its new ugly fences, and wondered if Mr. Barradine's trustees had,
after all, chosen the site wisely. Poor old gentleman, it would be
unkind if his last fancies received scant attention. It was rather
nice of him to have this idea of doing good after his death, to plot
it all, and put it down on paper with such painstaking care.

Truly she was thinking of him now as though he had been a total
stranger, some important person that she had known well by name but
never chanced to meet. She listened to the faint clinking of
bricklayers' trowels, watched men with hods going slowly up and down
ladders, men carrying poles, men unloading half a dozen carts; thought
what a quantity of money was being expended, and how grateful in the
future the little desolate children would be when their costly home
was ready for them; and only as it were by accident did she remember
that she too had cost the estate money, and perhaps also ought to be
grateful. But she had long since ceased to think about the legacy.
What the yokels would call her "small basket fortune" had served a
purpose handsomely, and there was an end of it. The man from whom it
came had gone as completely as the morning mist went when the sun
began to shine.

The harm he had done her was nothing. If she purposely dragged out its
memory, it seemed much less strong and actual than half one's dreams.
Incredible that little more than a year ago she had been in such dire
and dreadful trouble.

She struck the highroad again a little way short of the Abbey Cross
Roads, and came swinging homeward with long strides, feeling healthy,
hungry, happy. And the nearer she drew to home, the deeper grew the
happiness. "Oh, what a lucky woman I am," she said to herself.

And with a quite unconscious selfishness that is an essential
attribute of joy, and that makes all very successful and contented
people think themselves singled out, watched over, and especially
guided by fate, she blessed and applauded the beneficently omniscient
Providence which had given just enough worry in her youth to enable
her to appreciate comfort in mature years, which had delayed
motherhood until she could best bear a he