June stood before him, her resolute small face raised from her little height to his great height, and her hand outheld.

The brightness faded from James’s visage.

“How are you ?” he said, brooding over her. “So you’re going to Wales tomorrow to visit your young man’s aunts? You’ll have a lot of rain there. This isn’t real old Worcester.” He tapped the bowl. “Now, that set I gave your mother when she married was the genuine thing.”

June shook hands one by one with her three great-uncles, and turned to Aunt Ann. A very sweet look had come into the old lady’s face; she kissed the girl’s cheek with trembling fervour.

“Well, my dear,” she said, “and so you’re going for a whole month!”

The girl passed on, and Aunt Ann looked after her slim little figure. The old lady’s round, steel grey eyes, over which a film like a bird’s was beginning to come, followed her wistfully amongst the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to say goodbye; and her fingertips, pressing and pressing against each other, were busy again with the recharging of her will against that inevitable ultimate departure of her own.