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‘Confidential’ is a strange word to link with Mrs. Cloud, who did not, originally because she would not (but ‘would’ had long ago hardened into ‘could’) expand or respond to any one save Justin: and how often, how intimately even to him, had she spoken of what lay closest to her heart? closer, more desperately dear than Justin, even than Justin; for women will always wonder how far the God-appointed seed consoles for Abel dead and Cain a fugitive. What should Justin know, beyond their names, of the two little girls who died, and of the first-born, John, the legendary brother, so like and so unlike himself, John Cloud the ne’er-do-weel, swallowed up years since by the continent that gives new lamps for old?

But watch Mrs. Cloud’s face (or, if you love her a little, do not watch) when Brackenhurst stirs its tea, and doubles up its thin bread-and-butter, and talks, with its air of bewildered but unshakable patronage, of America.

The grocer, bankrupt since Brackenhurst’s invasion by the smart, blue-painted Co-operative Stores (margarine given in with every pound of butter) poor Pringleson the grocer is doing very well out there. Has built a house and sent home for Mrs. Pringleson.