MISS URSULA WINWOOD, hatless, but with a cotton sunshade swinging over her shoulder, and with a lean, shiny, mahogany-coloured Sussex spaniel trailing behind, walked in her calm, deliberate way down the long carriage drive of Drane's Court.

She was stout and florid, and had no scruples as to the avowal of her age, which was forty-three.

She had clear blue eyes which looked steadily upon a complicated world of affairs, and a square, heavy chin which showed her capacity for dealing with it.

Miss Ursula Winwood knew herself to be a notable person, and the knowledge did not make her vain or crotchety or imperious.

She took her notability for granted, as she took her mature good looks and her independent fortune.