Winwood. Many leagues, societies, associations, claimed her as
President, Vice-President, or Member of Council. She had sat on
Royal Commissions. Her name under an appeal for charity guaranteed
the deserts of the beneficiaries. What she did not know about
housing problems, factory acts, female prisons, hospitals, asylums
for the blind, decayed gentlewomen, sweated trades, dogs' homes and
Friendly Societies could not be considered in the light of
knowledge. She sat on platforms with Royal princesses, Archbishops
welcomed her as a colleague, and Cabinet Ministers sought her
counsel.

For some distance from the porch of the red-brick, creeper-covered
Queen-Anne house the gravel drive between the lawns blazed in the
afternoon sun. For this reason, the sunshade. But after a while came
an avenue of beech and plane and oak casting delectable shade on the
drive and its double edging of grass, and the far-stretching riot of
flowers beneath the trees, foxgloves and canterbury bells and
campanulas and delphiniums, all blues and purples and whites, with
here and there the pink of dog-roses and gorgeous yellow splashes of
celandine. On entering the stately coolness, Miss Winwood closed her
sunshade and looked at her watch, a solid timepiece harboured in her
belt. A knitted brow betrayed mathematical calculation. It would
take her five minutes to reach the lodge gate. The train bringing
her venerable uncle, Archdeacon Winwood, for a week's visit would
not arrive at the station for another three minutes, and the two fat
horses would take ten minutes to drag from the station the landau
which she had sent to meet him. She had, therefore, eight minutes to
spare. A rustic bench invited repose. Graciously she accepted the
invitation.