weather doesn't
know about the place or the people. He has a collection of Ashleyana of
all sorts, records, deeds, titles, old letters, family trees. And for
the last forty years he has been very busy writing a history of Ashley."

"A history of _Ashley_?" exclaimed Vincent.

"A history of Ashley," she answered, level-browed.

Mr. Welles had the impression that a "side-wipe" had been exchanged in
which he had not shared.

Vincent now asked irrelevantly, "Do you go to church yourself?"

"Oh yes," she answered, "I go, I like to go. And I take the children."
She turned her head so that she looked down at her long hands in her
lap, as she added, "I think going to church is a _refining_ influence in
children's lives, don't you?"

To Mr. Welles' horror this provoked from Vincent one of his great
laughs. And this time he was sure that Mrs. Crittenden would take
offense, for she looked up, distinctly startled, really quite as though
he _had_ looked in through the key-hole. But Vincent went on laughing.
He even said, impudently, "Ah, now I've caught you, Mrs. Crittenden;
you're too used to keeping your jokes to yourself. And they're much too
good for that."

She looked at him hard, with a certain wonder in her eyes.

"Oh, there's no necromancy about it," he told her. "I've been reading
the titles of your books and glancing over your music before you came
in. And I can put two and two together. Who are you making fun of to
yourself? Who first got off that lovely speech about the refining
influence of church?"

She laughed a little, half-uneasily, a brighter color mounting to her
smooth oval cheeks. "That's one of Mrs. Bayweather's favorite maxims,"
she admitted. She added, "But I really _do_ like to go to church."

Mr. Welles felt an apprehension about the turn things were taking.
Vincent, he felt sure, was on the verge of being up to something. And he
did not want to risk offending Mrs. Crittenden. He stood up. "Thank you
very much for telling us about the minister and his wife, Mrs.
Crittenden. I think we'll go right along down to the village now, and
pay a call on them. There'll be time enough before dinner." Vincent of
course got up too, at this, saying, "He's the most perfect old
housekeeper, you know. He's kept the neatest flat for himself and that
aged aunt of his for seventy years."

"_Seventy!_" cried Mr. Welles, scandalized at the exaggeration.

"Oh, more or less," said Vincent, laughing. Mr. Welles notice