"Mother, you know very well that Cousin Jane will be a more sympathetic
companion. You've been pining for her all this time."

Cousin Jane held distinct views on the cut of under-clothes for the
deserving poor, and as clouds disperse before the sun so did household dust
before her presence. Untidiness followed in Zora's steps, as it does in
those of the physically large, and Cousin Jane disapproved of her
thoroughly. But Mrs. Oldrieve often sighed for Cousin Jane as she had never
sighed for Zora, Emily, or her husband. She was more than content with the
prospect of her companionship.

"At any rate, my dear," she said that evening, as she paused, candle in
hand, by her bedroom door, "at any rate I hope you'll do nothing that is
unbecoming to a gentlewoman."

Such was her benison.

Zora bumped her head against the oak beam that ran across her bedroom
ceiling.

"It's quite true," she said to herself, "the place is too small for me, I
don't fit."

* * * * *

What she was going to do in this wide world into whose glories she was
about to enter she had but the vaguest notion. All to her was the Beautiful
Unknown. Narrow means had kept her at Cheltenham and afterwards at
Nunsmere, all her life. She had met her husband in Ipswich while she was
paying a polite visit to some distant cousins. She had married him offhand,