Lydia had continued because she liked to think of herself as a person who honoured tradition, and because from this vantage point she could usually keep a close eye on anyone on the property. She could see her new caretaker on the rider mower in the back field. He was hunched forward over the seat and the steering wheel looking, as her father would have said, as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She wondered why his posture was suddenly so poor. She was of the school that believed that the spine was a reflection of character, and that only the weak stooped.