NICOLE went out to the hall to see the visitor depart. When she came back to the drawing-room, “Well?” she said.
    “Well,” said Barbara, and added, “I must say!”
    Her cousin laughed. “Yes, ‘smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau’ or words to that effect. All the same I like Mrs. Jackson, though I admit at first I was appalled. The tight figure, the large red face crowned by the ospreyed hat! I thought ‘That woman at Rutherfurd!’ But in a little I realized that she wasn’t ‘that woman’ at all. She’s a dear, and simple, and above all a comic. I do love a comic.”
   Nicole put a log on the fire.
   “Wasn’t she funny about Mary Carstairs? ‘A frozen sort of woman’ so exactly describes her when she is standing at bay, so to speak, before the advances of the populace. I think myself that it’s silly of her. Her life would be enormously more interesting if, in­stead of standing aloof and looking ‘frozen,’ she would try to like and understand these kindly people. After all, it’s a case of Canute and the waves. They’re coming in like a tide, the new people, and the most dignified thing for us is to pretend we like it, and to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Anyway, I’m enor­mously cheered by Mrs. Jackson. I had a nightmare fear that Rutherfurd would be bought by horrible ‘smart’ people. I don’t grudge it a bit to that comic.”
    Lady Jane laid her hand on her daughter’s.
    “That’s so like you, Nikky,” she said. “You never expect to receive evil things, but if they come you immediately discover in them some lurking good. That’s why you’re such a comfortable person to live with.”
    “I don’t believe,” said Barbara, “that we’ll hear any more of this Mrs. Jackson. It seems most im­probable that people like that could even think of buying a place like Rutherfurd.”
    Nicole wagged her head wisely. “Mark my words, in a few days Mr. Jackson will arrive. I’m not sure that I shall like him, I distrust his high ideals—wasn’t it pathetic the way his wife said, ‘He has such high ideels, you know what I mean’?—and he evidently has a correct mind and knows what to admire, which is so tiresome. Still, he may be a very nice man, and willing to deal justly and be decent about things. Yes, I feel it in my bones that the Jacksons are to be our successors.”
    “It’s a mercy you can take it so light-heartedly,” Barbara observed dryly, but Nicole did not reply.
    Lady Jane sat looking at the fire, not listening to what the girls were saying. It hurt Barbara to see her . . . She looked so wan in her black dress, so desolate. Barbara thought of her as she used to be, looking almost a girl in her pretty clothes, with her husband and Ronnie and Archie always hanging round her. Now she sat there having lost everything, her husband, her boys, her home, her position. And the worst of it was no one could do anything to help her. One could not even think, “Oh, well, in time she will begin to feel quite bright again. In time she will cease to mourn, and will become one of those contented, healthy widows that one meets everywhere.” She was not like that. It sometimes struck Barbara with a sharp pang that her aunt was merely living from habit, that the mainspring of her life was broken. She won­dered if the same thing had struck Nicole.
    “Mums,” said Nicole, “don’t look at nothing. Turn your head round and try to look interested in my bright conversation.”
    Lady Jane smiled up at her daughter’s down-bent face.
    “Why, yes, darling. I’m so sorry I was dreaming when pearls were falling from your lips. Will you repeat your valuable remarks?”
    Nicole bowed with mock gravity. “My words of wisdom are so numerous that it seems almost a pity to repeat. I was only philosophising . . . You may not realize it, you and Barbara, but we are in rather a romantic position. Mr. Chesterton would describe us as ‘the last sad squires riding slowly to the sea.’ Why to the sea, exactly? I don’t know. But, anyway, novels have been written about such as we.”
    “Very dull novels they must be,” said Barbara. “I don’t know how you can laugh, Nik. It’s the most tragic thing that ever happened, that the Rutherfurds should have to leave Rutherfurd.”
    “Of course it is,” Nicole agreed, “so tragic that the only thing to do is to try and laugh. Mr. Haynes says we can’t afford to live in it, and our lawyer ought to know. It’s the Jacksons’ turn now, and we must go down with the lights up and the flags flying. A Ruther­furd fell at Flodden, and the name has been respected all down the years, and not
the least honourable were the three Rutherfurds that we  knew best—we’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Simply, there is no room any more for our sort. We are hustled out. We can’t compete. Rutherfurd must go to the successful man who can cope with life as it is now! We must find some other place to pass our days in. Well, I  don’t mind.”    
   Nicole got up and went to the fire, her head held high, a certain swagger in her walk, such as one sometimes sees in small boys who are shy and homesick and wish to conceal it.