made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures
and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least
interest in it--almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations
caused by the paraphernalia of existence. She scarcely knew what it was to
own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond these her
possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest from the
authorities earthly or celestial.

The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had
distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched
itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.

Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon.
She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond
the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of
disdain. All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."

And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was
greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she was plain, she had not elegance;
her accent and turns of speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had
a magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled with energy,
inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth beneath the eyes showed by its
sardonic dropping corners that she had come to a settled, cheerful
conclusion about human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representative of the
Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately
the needy and the rich and the middling. She was charitable without