rather! It's such a comfort Horace doesn't know."

Still Gregory did not speak.

Mrs. Pendyce's face lost its anxious look, and gained a sort of gentle
admiration.

"Dear Grig," she said, "where do you go about your hair? It is so nice
and long and wavy!"

Gregory turned with a blush.

"I've been wanting to get it cut for ages. Do you really mean, Margery,
that your husband can't realise the position she's placed in?"

Mrs. Pendyce fixed her eyes on her lap.

"You see, Grig," she began, "she was here a good deal before she left the
Firs, and, of course, she's related to me--though it's very distant.
With those horrid cases, you never know what will happen. Horace is
certain to say that she ought to go back to her husband; or, if that's
impossible, he'll say she ought to think of Society. Lady Rose Bethany's
case has shaken everybody, and Horace is nervous. I don't know how it is,
there's a great feeling amongst people about here against women asserting
themselves. You should hear Mr. Barter and Sir James Maiden, and dozens
of others; the funny thing is that the women take their side. Of course,
it seems odd to me, because so many of the Totteridges ran away, or did
something funny. I can't help sympathising with her, but I have to think
of--of----In the country, you don't know how things that people do get
about before they've done them! There's only that and hunting to talk
of."

Gregory Vigil clutched at his head.

"Well, if this is what chivalry has come to, thank God I'm not a squire!"

Mrs. Pendyce's eyes flickered.

"Ah!" she said, "I've thought like that so often."

Gregory broke the silence.

"I can't help the customs of the country. My duty's plain. There's
nobody else to look after her."

Mrs. Pendyce sighed, and, rising from her chair, said: "Very well, dear
Grig; do let us go and have some tea."

Tea at Worsted Skeynes was served in the hall on Sundays, and was usually
attended by the Rector and his wife. Young Cecil Tharp had walked over
with his dog, which could be heard whimpering faintly outside the
front-door.

General Pendyce, with his knees crossed and the tips of his fingers
pressed together, was leaning back in his chair and staring at the wall.
The Squire, who held his latest bird's-egg in his hand, was showing its
spots to the Rector.

In a corner by a harmonium, on which no one ever played, Norah talked of
the village hockey club to Mrs. Barter, who sat with her e