VII


Symford, innocent village, went to bed very early; but early as it
went long before it had got there on this evening it contained no
family that had not heard of the arrivals at Baker's Farm. From the
vicarage the news had filtered that a pretty young lady called Schultz
was staying there with her uncle; from the agent's house the news that
a lunatic called Neumann was staying there with his niece; and about
supper-time, while it was still wondering at this sudden influx of
related Germans, came the postmistress and said that the boy from
Baker's who fetched the letters knew nothing whatever of any one
called Schultz. He had, said the postmistress, grown quite angry and
forgotten the greater and by far the better part of his manners when
she asked him how he could stand there and say such things after all
the years he had attended Sunday-school and if he were not afraid the
earth would open and swallow him up, and he had stuck to it with an
obstinacy that had at length convinced her that only one uncle and
niece were at Baker's, and their name was Neumann. He added that there
was another young lady there whose name he couldn't catch, but who sat
on the edge of her bed all day crying and refusing sustenance.
Appeased by the postmistress's apologies for her first unbelief he
ended by being anxious to give all the information in his power, and
came back quite a long way to tell her that he had forgotten to say
that his mother had said that the niece's Christian name was
Maria-Theresa.