"Now listen to my little story.
"One morning, during this last autumn, Mrs. Mallory received a business letter at breakfast, necessitating an immediate journey to town, for a trying interview. After much weighing of pros and cons, she decided upon a train; and I sent her to the station in the motor.
"A sadly worried and distressed little face looked out and bowed a tearful farewell to me, as she departed. I knew she had hoped I should offer to go with her; but it was a lovely October day, and I wanted a morning in the garden, and a ride in the afternoon. It happened to be a very free day for me; and I did not feel at all like wasting the golden sunshine over a day in town, in and out of shops with Mrs. Mallory; watching her examine all the things which she, after all, could not 'feel it quite right to buy.' She never appears to question the rightness of giving tired shop people endless unnecessary labour. I knew she intended combining hours of this kind of negative enjoyment, with her trying interview.
"So I turned back into the house, sat down in the sunny bay window of the breakfast room, and took Times; thankful that the dear lady had departed by the earliest of the three trains which had been under discussion during the greater part of breakfast.
"But my conscience would not let me enjoy my morning paper in peace. I had not read five lines before I knew that it would have been kind to have gone with Mrs. Mallory; I had not read ten, before I knew that it was unkind to have let the poor little soul go alone. She was a widow and worried; and she had mentioned the departed Philip, as a bitterly regretted shield, prop, and mainstay, many times during breakfast.
"I looked at the clock. The motor was, of course, gone; and the quarter of an hour it would take to send down to the stables and put in a horse would lose me the train. I could just do it on my bicycle if I got off in four minutes, and rode hard.
"Rodgers trotted out my machine, while I rushed up for a hat and gloves. I was wearing the short tweed skirt, Norfolk coat, and stout boots, in which I had intended to tramp about the park and gardens; but there was not time to change. I caught up the first hat I could lay hands on, slipped on a pair of reindeer gloves as I ran downstairs, jumped on to my bicycle, and was half-way down the avenue, before old Rodgers had recovered his breath, temporarily taken by the haste with which he had answered my pealing bell.
"By dint of hard riding, I got into the station just in time to fling my bicycle to a porter, and leap into the guard's van of the already moving train.
"At the first stop, I went along, and found Mrs. Mallory, alone and melancholy, in an empty compartment. Her surprise and pleasure at sight of me, seemed ample reward. She pressed my hand, in genuine delight and gratitude.
"'I couldn't let you go alone,' I said. Then, as I sat down opposite to her, something—it may have been her own dainty best attire—made me suddenly conscious of the shortness of my serviceable skirt, and the roughness of my tweed. 'So I am coming with you, after all,' I added; 'unless you think me too countrified, in this get-up; and will be ashamed to be seen with me in town!'