e. I had been brought up on the old lines,
and I inculcated them on my pupils. But, as I say, with Jenny there was
no need. The difficulty was the other way. Why, I remember a very nice
young fellow, named Maunders (was Maunders Rabbit, I wondered), who paid
her such nice attentions--so respectful! (Maunders was Rabbit, depend
upon it!) She used to be angry with him--positively angry, Mrs. Jepps."
Chat nodded sagely. "Comparing small things and great, it's the same
thing here." Thus did Chat transform into girlish coyness Jenny's
masterful grip on liberty!

"It's possible to carry it too far. Then it looks like
shilly-shallying," said Mrs. Jepps.

"She does carry it too far," Chat hastened to admit candidly. "Much too
far. Why, between ourselves, I tell her so every day." (Oh, oh, Chat, as
if you dared!) "I try to use some of my old authority." Chat smiled
playfully over this.

"Well," said Mrs. Jepps, rising to go, "I suppose the poor man's got to
put up with anything from sixty thousand a year!"

In that remark Mrs. Jepps, shrewdly unconvinced by Chat's convincing
precedent, hit off the growing feeling of the neighborhood--the feeling
of whose growth Fillingford had begun to be afraid. He believed that all
communication with Octon had been broken off; he had never considered
Octon as a rival. He saw no ostensible reason for Jenny's hesitation; he
was either sure that she would say yes if forced to an answer, or he
made up his mind at last to take the risk. He came over to Breysgate
Priory with a formal offer and the demand for a formal answer.

Needless to say, he did not confide this fact to me, but I had
information really as good as first-hand. On the day in question I was
sitting reading in my own house after lunch when, with a perfunctory
knock, young Lacey put his head in at the door.

"Got any tobacco and a drink, Mr. Austin? We've walked over. I've
dropped the governor up the hill."

I welcomed him, provided him with what he wanted, and sat him down by
the fire; it was late autumn now and chilly. He was looking amused in a
reflective sort of way.

"I say, I suppose you're pretty well in the know up there, aren't you?"
He nodded in the direction of the Priory. "Not much danger of the
governor slipping up, is there? Oh, you know what I mean! There's no
reason you and I shouldn't talk about it."

"Perhaps I do, Lord Lacey. Your father's at the Priory now?"

"I've just left him there. It's a bit odd to