doesn't seem to me to matter much--"

"But if it should be true?"

Maggie raised her eyebrows, smiling.

"Dear auntie, do put it out of your head. How can it possibly be
true?"

Mrs. Baxter set her lips in as much severity as she could.

"I shall ask the Vicar," she said. "We might stop at the Vicarage on
the way back."

Mrs. Baxter did not often stop at the Vicarage; as she did not
altogether approve of the Vicar's wife. There was a good deal of pride
in the old lady, and it seemed to her occasionally as if Mrs. Rymer
did not understand the difference between the Hall and the Parsonage.
She envied sometimes, secretly, the Romanist idea of celibacy: it was
so much easier to get on with your spiritual adviser if you did not
have to consider his wife. But here, was a matter which a clergyman
must settle for her once and for all; so she put on a slight air of
dignity which became her very well, and a little after four o'clock
the Victoria turned up the steep little drive that led to the
Vicarage.


III

Thee dusk was already fallen before Laurie, strolling vaguely in the