almost a sort of intimacy over the wool scarf for the deep-sea
fisherman, which was taken up and laid down, and even carried out on the
lawn and left under the trees for the footmen to restore when they
brought in the rugs and cushions. Lady Maria was amusing herself with
the making of knitted scarfs and helmets just now, and bits of white or
gray knitting were the fashion at Mallowe. Once Agatha brought hers to
Emily's room in the afternoon to ask that a dropped stitch might be
taken up, and this established a sort of precedent. Afterward they began
to exchange visits.

The strenuousness of things was becoming, in fact, almost too much for
Lady Agatha. Most unpleasant things were happening at home, and
occasionally Castle Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like a
spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, in Lady Claraway's opinion, to
have kept quiet and waited in patience until things became better, were
becoming hideously persistent. In view of the fact that Alix's next
season must be provided for, it was most awkward. A girl could not be
presented and properly launched in the world, in a way which would give
her a proper chance, without expenditure. To the Claraways expenditure
meant credit, and there were blots as of tears on the letters in which
Lady Claraway reiterated that the tradespeople were behaving horribly.
Sometimes, she said once in desperation, things looked as if they would
all be obliged to shut themselves up in Castle Clare to retrench; and
then what was to become of Alix and her season? And there were Millicent
and Hilda and Eve.

More than once there was the mist of tears in the flower-blue eyes when
Lady Agatha came to talk. Confidence between two women establishes
itself through processes at once subtle and simple. Emily Fox-Seton
could not have told when she first began to know that the beauty was