Mr. Carlyon took in the _Graphic_ as well as his _Quarterly Review_ and
the _Nineteenth Century_, and it was her only medium for guessing even
what the outside world looked like, but from it she was quite aware that
a beard was a most unusual thing for a young modern man of the world,
and that John Derringham for that reason must always be distinguished
from his fellows. Carpenters and hedgers and ditchers wore them, and
nondescript young fellows she remembered seeing when she went into
Upminster with her aunts; but these excursions had been discontinued now
for the past five years, so the villagers of Sarthe-under-Crum and the
denizens of the rather larger Applewood were the only human beings she
ever saw.

The party at Wendover were to arrive on the Thursday before Good
Friday--Priscilla had told her that--and it was just possible that some
of them might be in church.

The aunts now drove a low basket shay which had been their pride in the
sixties, but which for countless years, until the investment began to
pay, they had been unable to keep a pair of ponies for. Now, however,
the shay was unearthed from the moldy coach-house and for the past year
two very old and quiet specimens of Shetland had been found for them by
Mr. Martin and they were able to drive to church every Sunday in state,
William sitting up behind, holding the reins between his mistresses,
while Miss La Sarthe flourished a small whip whose delicate handle was
studded with minute turquoises. From it dangled a ring which she could
slip on her finger over her one-buttoned slate-colored glove, and so
feel certain of not dropping this treasure. Halcyone always walked.

On Good Friday there was not a sight of the Wendover party in church,
and Halcyone went back by the orchard house to look in at Cheiron, who