the eyes of Argus himself in their manifold power to spy out the
proceedings of other people--more especially of any person whom their
owner disliked.

Now Miss Pillby had never loved Ida Palliser, objecting to her on broad
grounds as a person whose beauty and talents were an indirect injury to
mediocre people. Since Ida's visit to The Knoll her angry feeling had
intensified with every mention of the pleasures and comforts of that
abode. Miss Pillby, who never opened a book for her own pleasure, who
cared nothing for music, and whose highest notion of art was all
blacklead pencil and bread-crumbs, had plenty of vacant space in her
mind for other people's business. She was a sharp observer of the
fiddle-faddle of daily life; she had a keen scent for evil motives
underlying simple actions. Thus when she perceived the intimacy which had
newly arisen between the Fraeulein and Miss Palliser, she told herself
that there must be some occult reason for the fact. Why did those two
always walk together? What hidden charm had they discovered in the
river-meadow?

For this question, looked at from Miss Pillby's point of view, there
could be only one answer. The attraction was masculine. One or other of
the damsels must have an admirer whom she contrived to see somehow, or to
correspond with somehow, during her meadow walk. That the thing had gone
so far as it really had gone, that any young lady at Mauleverer could
dare to walk and talk with an unlicensed man in the broad light of day,
was more than Miss Pillby's imagination could conceive. But she
speculated upon some transient glimpse of a man on the opposite bank, or
in the middle distance of the river--a handkerchief waved, a signal
given, perhaps a love-letter hidden in a hollow bree. This was about the
culminating point to which any intrigue at Mauleverer had ever reached