life’s outcasts, one of the drifting lives that have no root. No, no it could not be so. She suddenly conjured up a rosy room, with herself in a beautiful gown, and a handsome man in evening dress who held her in his arms in the firelight, and kissed her. This picture she entitled ‘Home.’ It would have done for the Royal Academy.

‘Come with us to tea — DO,’ said Ursula, as they ran nearer to the cottage of Willey Green.

‘Thanks awfully — but I MUST go in — ’ said Gudrun. She wanted very much to go on with Ursula and Birkin.

That seemed like life indeed to her. Yet a certain perversity would not let her.

‘Do come — yes, it would be so nice,’ pleaded Ursula.