vinegar than a woman. Her name was Sarah and she was small, plain, flat,
sandy-haired and odious, quite obsessed, moreover, with her jealousies
of the Rev. Basil, at whom it pleased her to suppose that every woman in
the countryside under fifty was throwing herself.

Here I will confess that to the best of my ability I took care that they
did in outward seeming, that is, whenever she was present, instructing
them to sit aside with him in darkened corners, to present him with
flowers, and so forth. Several of them easily fell into the humour of
the thing, and I have seen him depart from a dinner-party followed by
that glowering Sarah, with a handful of rosebuds and violets, to say
nothing of the traditional offerings of slippers, embroidered markers
and the like. Well, it was my only way of coming even with her, which I
think she knew, for she hated me poisonously.

So much for Basil Bastin. Now for Bickley. Him I had met on several
occasions since our college days, and after I was settled at the Priory
from time to time I asked him to stay with me. At length he came, and
I found out that he was not at all comfortable in his London practice
which was of a nature uncongenial to him; further, that he did not get
on with his partners. Then, after reflection, I made a suggestion
to him. I pointed out that, owing to its popularity amongst seaside
visitors, the neighbourhood of Fulcombe was a rising one, and that
although there were doctors in it, there was no really first-class
surgeon for miles.

Now Bickley was a first-class surgeon, having held very high hospital
appointments, and indeed still holding them. Why, I asked, should he
not come and set up here on his own? I would appoint him doctor to
the estate and also give him charge of a cottage hospital which I was
endowing, with liberty to build and arrange it as he liked. Further, as
I considered that it would be of great advantage to me to have a man of
real ability within reach, I would guarantee for three years whatever
income he was earning in London.

He thanked me warmly and in the end acted on the idea, with startling
results so far as his prospects were concerned. Very soon his really
remarkable skill became known and he was earning more money than as an
unmarried man he could possibly want. Indeed, scarcely a big operation
took place at any town within twenty miles, and even much farther away,
at which he was not called in to assist.

Needless to say his