just arrived. Come over to my corner and I’ll introduce her to you, and you can have a nice chat about it. You will like each other so much, she is such a keen worker. Oh! and Mrs. Peasgood, my husband is so anxious to have a word with you about the choirboys’ social. He is discussing it now with Mrs. Findlater. I wonder if you’d be so very good as to come and give him your opinion? He values it so much.”

Thus tactfully the good lady parted the disputants and, having deposited Mrs. Peasgood safely under the clerical wing, towed Miss Climpson away to an armchair near the tea-table.

“Dear Miss Whittaker, I so want you to know Miss Climpson. She is a near neighbour of yours⁠—in Nelson Avenue, and I hope we shall persuade her to make her home among us.”

“That will be delightful,” said Miss Whittaker.

The first impression which Miss Climpson got of Mary Whittaker was that she was totally out of place among the tea-tables of St. Onesimus. With her handsome, strongly-marked features and quiet air of authority, she was of the type that “does well” in City offices. She had a pleasant and self-possessed manner, and was beautifully tailored⁠—not mannishly, and yet with a severe fineness of outline that negatived the appeal of a beautiful figure. With her long and melancholy experience of frustrated womanhood, observed in a dreary succession of cheap boardinghouses, Miss Climpson was able to dismiss one theory which had vaguely formed itself in her mind. This was no passionate nature, cramped by association with an old woman and eager to be free to mate before youth should depart. That look she knew well⁠—she could diagnose it with dreadful accuracy at the first glance, in the tone of a voice saying, “How do you do?” But meeting Mary Whittaker’s clear, light eyes under their well-shaped brows, she was struck by a sudden sense of familiarity. She had seen that look before, though the where and the when escaped her. Chatting volubly about her arrival in Leahampton, her introduction to the Vicar and her approval of the Hampshire air and sandy soil, Miss Climpson racked her shrewd brain for a clue. But the memory remained obstinately somewhere at the back of her head. “It will come to me in the night,” thought Miss Climpson, confidently, “and meanwhile I won’t say anything about the house; it would seem so pushing on a first acquaintance.”

Whereupon, fate instantly intervened to overthrow this prudent resolve, and very nearly ruined the whole effect of Miss Climpson’s diplomacy at one fell swoop.

The form which the avenging Erinyes assumed was that of the youngest Miss Findlater⁠—the gushing one⁠—who came romping over to them, her hands filled with baby-linen, and plumped down on the end of the sofa beside Miss Whittaker.

“Mary my dear! Why didn’t you tell me? You really are going to start your chicken-farming scheme at once. I’d no idea you’d got on so far with your plans. How could you let me hear it first from somebody else? You promised to tell me before anybody.”

“But I didn’t know it myself,” replied Miss Whittaker, coolly. “Who told you this wonderful story?”

“Why, Mrs. Peasgood said that she heard it from⁠ ⁠…” Here Miss Findlater was in a difficulty. She had not yet been introduced to Miss Climpson and hardly knew how to refer to her before her face. “This lady” was what a shop-girl would say; “Miss Climpson” would hardly do, as she had, so to speak, no official cognisance of the name; “Mrs. Budge’s new lodger” was obviously impossible in the circumstances. She hesitated⁠—then beamed a bright appeal at Miss Climpson, and said: “Our new helper⁠—may I introduce myself? I do so detest formality, don’t you, and to belong to the Vicarage work-party is a sort of introduction in itself, don’t you think? Miss Climpson, I believe? How do you do? It is true, isn’t it, Mary?⁠—that you are letting your house to Miss Climpson, and starting a poultry-farm at Alford.”

“Certainly not that I know of. Miss Climpson and I have only just met one another.” The tone of Miss Whittaker’s voice suggested that the first meeting might very willingly be the last so far as she was concerned.

“Oh dear!” cried the youngest Miss Findlater, who was fair and bobbed and rather coltish, “I believe I’ve dropped a brick. I’m sure Mrs. Peasgood understood that it was all settled.” She appealed to Miss Climpson again.

Quite a mistake!” said that lady, energetically, “what must you be thinking of me, Miss Whittaker? Of course, I could not possibly have said such a thing. I only happened to mention⁠—in the most casual way, that I was looking⁠—that is, thinking of looking about⁠—for a house in the neighbourhood of the Church⁠—so convenient you know, for Early Services and Saints’ Days⁠—and it was suggested⁠—just suggested, I really forget by whom, that you might, just possibly, at some time, consider letting your house. I assure you, that was all.” In saying which, Miss Climpson was not wholly accurate or disingenuous, but excused herself to her conscience on the rather Jesuitical grounds that where so much responsibility was floating about, it was best to pin it down in the quarter which made for peace. “Miss Murgatroyd,” she added, “put me right at once, for she said you were certainly not thinking of any such thing, or you would have told her before anybody else.”

Miss Whittaker laughed.

“But I shouldn’t,” she said, “I should have told my house-agent. It’s quite true, I did have it in mind, but I certainly haven’t taken any steps.”

“You really are thinking of doing it, then?” cried Miss Findlater. “I do hope so⁠—because, if you do, I mean to apply for a job on the farm! I’m simply longing to get away from all these silly tennis-parties and things, and live close to the Earth and the fundamental crudities. Do you read Sheila Kaye-Smith?”

Miss Climpson said no, but she was very fond of Thomas Hardy.

“It really

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