'I know what you are going to ask. I suppose this is an instance of a
kind of thought-reading. Miss Wilkins called yesterday and told me of a
dream her brother had as a child when they lived here, and something did
no doubt make me think of that when I was awake last night listening to
those horrible owls and those men talking and laughing in the shrubbery
(by the way, I wish you would see if they have done any damage, and speak
to the police about it); and so, I suppose, from my brain it must have
got into yours while you were asleep. Curious, no doubt, and I am sorry
it gave you such a bad night. You had better be as much in the fresh air
as you can to-day.'

'Oh, it's all right now; but I think I _will_ go over to the Lodge and
see if I can get a game with any of them. And you?'

'I have enough to do for this morning; and this afternoon, if I am not
interrupted, there is my drawing.'

'To be sure--I want to see that finished very much.'

No damage was discoverable in the shrubbery. Mr Anstruther surveyed with
faint interest the site of the rose garden, where the uprooted post still
lay, and the hole it had occupied remained unfilled. Collins, upon
inquiry made, proved to be better, but quite unable to come to his work.
He expressed, by the mouth of his wife, a hope that he hadn't done
nothing wrong clearing away them things. Mrs Collins added that there was
a lot of talking people in Westfield, and the hold ones was the worst:
seemed to think everything of them having been in the parish longer than
what other people had. But as to what they said no more could then be
ascertained than that it had quite upset Collins, and was a lot of
nonsense.