188 IDLEHURST: 



time." I know Blackhatch well, where a flamboyant 

 mansion, all red gables and chimneys, crowns the 

 hill, a sign to half the county ; round it climb the 

 sweeps of bare gravel-drive amid groves of eighteen- 

 inch laurustinus and arbor-vitse. " Such a delightful 

 old place ! " repeats my visitor, her glass aimed 

 momentarily at Helen and Gervase seen in a vista 

 of hollyhocks as though it had grown on thus since 

 George the First, with never a modern backache nor 

 heartache in the process. 



" Now we really beat you in the view" she goes on, 

 with a glance over the village and the Downs. " The 

 view from my own room looks over the stables ; but 

 from the drawing-room, my husband says it only 

 wants a few more really good houses on the best 

 sites, to be really perfect. And then, we see the rail- 

 way ! As I sit in the breakfast-room, I can look right 

 up the line, and it really looks as if the train was 

 coming in at the window. So sweet ! Now, aren't 

 you often very dull here, with nothing going on ? " 



I murmur something about internal resources ; and 

 Mrs. Latimer flits to the Primrose League, a society 

 whose operations in these regions seem confined to 

 the giving of Penny Readings sandwiching a small 

 political address, and to that mild touting at election 

 times which the Acts allow. I counter with the 



