TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

were probably much worse than she admitted. Any-
how, she had been content to do very little, and I
caused her no anxiety, for I had "taken up golf" and
most of my time and energy had evaporated on the
links. The people I played with at Bidmouth were
equally engrossed by the game, and if they had any
ideas about things other than golf they showed no
inclination to share them with me. Aunt Evelyn
wasn't sorry to be going home again; there was plenty
to be done in the garden, and how the cats had got
on without her she couldn't imagine.

Of my own sensations about our return I have no
recollection:! may have felt vaguely dissatisfied, but
I did not consciously allow myself to criticize the
purposeless existence I was leading. At Waterloo
Station we changed from one train to another for the
final stage of our "through" journey. Ou account
of her feeling unwell. Aunt Evelyn had taken first-
class tickets, and this made me conscious that we had
a social position to keep up. Gratified by the obse-
quious attentions of the green-flagged guard, I
couldn't help wishing that my aunt had tipped him
more than a shilling. As she remarked, he was such
a very nice-mannered man, and I assumed that he
was expecting half a crown.

At any rate, it was a relief to settle down in a corner
of the dark blue cushioned compartment after my
aunt's unnecessary fussification about the luggage.
Raindrops trickled down the windows as we steamed
out of the station, and I was glad to avert my gaze
from the dingy and dilapidated tenements and ware-
houses which we were passing. Poverty was a thing
I hated to look in the face; it was like the thought of
illness and bad smells, and I resented the notion of
all those squalid slums spreading out into the un-

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