erself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until
the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea,
rather ruefully, was forced to fall back on Miss Buckston for
companionship. She had always, till now, found Miss Buckston's cheerful
dogmatism fortifying, and, even when it irritated her, instructive; but
she had now new standards of interest, and new sources of refreshment,
and, shut up with Miss Buckston for a rainy week, she felt as never
before the defects of this excellent person's many qualities.

She had fires lighted, much to Miss Buckston's amusement, and sat a good
deal by the blaze in the drawing-room, controlling her displeasure when
Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down
over her brows, came striding in from a ten-mile tramp and said, pulling
open all the windows, 'You are frightfully frusty in here.'

It was not 'frusty.' Althea had a scientific regard for ventilation, and
a damp breeze from the garden blew in at the furthest window. She had
quite enough air.

Miss Buckston was also very critical of Merriston House, and pointed out
the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said,
was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could
bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack
creature, Gerald Digby, I've heard.'

Althea coldly explained that Mr. Digby was too poor to live at Merriston
and to keep it up. She did not herself in the least mind the shabbiness.

'Oh, I don't mind it,' said Miss Buckston. 'I only think he's done
himself very well in getting you to take the place in this condition.
How much do you give for it?'

Althea, more coldly, named the sum. It was moderate; Miss Buckston had
to grant that, though but half-satisfied that there was no intention to
'do' her friend. 'When once you get into the hands of hard-up
fashionable folk,' she said, 'it's as well to look sharp.'

Althea did not quite know what to say to this. She had never in the past
opposed Miss Buckston, and it would be difficult to tell her now that
she took too much upon herself. At a hint of hesitancy, she knew, Miss
Buckston would pass to and fro over her like a steam-roller, nearly as
noisy, and to her own mind as composedly efficient. Hesitancy or
contradiction she flattened and left behind her.

She had an air of owning Bach that became peculiarly vexatious to
Althea, who, in silence, but armed with new s