e says she's taken particular
note as Mr. Hazlewood has never been near the Rectory for the last
fortnight unless it was once when she heard footsteps and hadn't time to
get to the window to see who it was on account of the kettle being on
the boil at that moment, where's your Holy Matrimony?' I said. With that
up speaks Miss Burge from the back of The shop whose father used to keep
the King's Head before he dropped dead of the apoplexy on Shipcot
platform. 'That doesn't say he hasn't gone round by the field the same
as Mr. Burrows's servant used to when she was being courted by
We'll-mention-no-names.' 'No, and that he hasn't, either,' said I,
smacking the counter, for I was feeling a bit angry by now at all this
poking about in other people's business, 'that he hasn't,' I said,
'because the Rectory cook asked me most particular if there was anything
the matter down at Plashers Mead, seeing as Mr. Hazlewood hadn't been
near the Rectory for a fortnight. That doesn't look like Holy
Matrimony,' I said, and with that I walked out of the post-office. Mr.
Hazlewood," Godbold concluded, very earnestly, "the gossip of Wychford
is something as no one would believe, if they hadn't heard it, as I
have, every mortal day of my life."

Guy could have laughed on his own account, but the notion of Pauline's
being dragged into the chatter made him furious. Yet what could he do?
If he went frequently to the Greys' house he must be engaged, according
to Wychford. And if he did not go....

"I suppose they'll be saying next that the engagement has been broken
off," he inquired, with cold sarcasm.

"Oh, they have said it. Depend upon it, Mr. Hazlewood, it undoubtedly
has been said."

It began to appeal to Guy as extremely undignified--the way in which he
had let Godbold chatter on like this.

"I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," he said, curtly.

"That's right. Work's the best answer to talk. Did you feel it much here
in that rainy spell?"

"The meadows were a bit splashy, of course, but the water never got
anywhere near the house."

"But it will. Don't you make any mistake. It will. Only, of course,
we've had a dry Autumn. Why, last June year Miss Peasey could have been
fishing for minnows in her kitchen. Now that seems a nice upstanding
sort of woman. A Wesleen, they tell me? I haven't seen her in church
that I can remember, and which would account for it. But I never talk to
the chapel folk, they being that unciviliz