MRS. BAGOT missed the children. They had been gone twenty-four hours. It was exactly that length of time since she had put them on the train, in the care of the guard, and sent them off to her sister and brother in the country, where they were going to spend a month. She wished the month were over. She didn’t know what to do with herself when they were away. Without them the house had neither substance nor meaning. The house was lonely, that is what it amounted to, and Mrs. Bagot felt the house was making her lonely. But the house was going to look very nice when the children came back. She was already planning what she would do to welcome them. She was going to put flowers all around — she would cut all the flowers in the garden. And she was going to bake a cake and put both their names on it in icing: “Lily,” “Margaret.” And then there were other things she was going to do, but these preparations, which she had already memorized and timed to the minute, still left her with nothing to do for a month but look forward, and she knew a grown woman should have more life of her own. Even if she had children, a woman should have a life of her own that would stand up when the children were out of the house for any length of time. She knew that. It was not right to let yourself get so lost in your children that you could find no trace of yourself when they were gone. What would she do when they grew up? Of course, it was silly to think of it; not silly — morbid. She was letting her imagination run away with her. She would make herself a cup of tea and cheer herself up. The tea would cheer her up. Still, she did not move. She continued to stand by the big window looking out into her garden.