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"It's an old one I keep for traveling."

"Well, it does look nice. And you look so cool."

"I feel very hot—and rather tired. Do you mind if I read my paper?"

"Oh, please do, and I'll read mine."

Iris opened her Tatler and Mrs. Gailey smoothed out a battered copy of the Picture Post.

2

Iris had opened her paper not only to stop the conversation but to screen her thoughts. Her thoughts, however, were not new. They revolved around the question she had been asking herself for years, but to which she had never found an answer. Why had poor Tom left Waters Farm to Lesley?

Of course, poor sweet, he had made his will in a hurry, expecting to be killed in a few months—which he was—and before he had recovered from his disappointment at the baby's being a girl. It was funny, thought Iris, how differently men reacted to that situation. Old Lord Downsbridge had practically cut his wife out of his will altogether because she had failed to provide him with an heir. But Tom had seemed to love her more than ever—only to dislike the baby. Iris was not so surprised as some of her friends when he left her the whole of the Doleham Manor property except for one outlying farm, which he bequeathed to his daughter with ten thousand pounds.