LITMIR.BIZ

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immediately, and was never actually discontinued by the two young men, who were talking to Caroline, until she left them to greet the new arrivals.

      "Ah, that's right; I'm glad you've come," said Grafton. "I suppose you know Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton. We've just discovered they're old friends of my wife's people."

      "No, I don't think that we've ever met before," said Mrs. Pemberton, addressing herself to the Vicar, who stood awkwardly beside her. She had the air of not minding to whom she addressed herself as long as she was not asked to discontinue addressing somebody. "I suppose you're the clergyman here. It's been rather beyond our beat, you know, until we got the car, and, of course, there hasn't been anybody here for years. Nice to have the place occupied again, isn't it? Must make a lot of difference to you, I should think. And such nice people too! Yes, it's odd, isn't it? Mr. Francis Parry came to spend the week-end with us—my son brought him—and he asked us if we knew the Graftons who had just bought this place, and we said we didn't but were going to call on them when they'd got settled in; and then suddenly I remembered and said: 'Didn't one of the Graftons marry Lord Handsworth's sister, and she died?' Well, I've known the Handsworths ever since I was a girl, and that's a good many years ago, as you may imagine. You needn't trouble to contradict me, you know."

      She looked up at him with a sharp smile. She was a hard-bitten old lady, with a face full of wrinkles in a skin that looked as if it had been out in the sun and rain for years, as indeed it had, and a pair of bright searching eyes. The Vicar returned her smile. One would have said that she had already made a conquest of him, in spite of his previous disapprobation, and her having taken no particular pains to do so.

      "Was Mrs. Grafton Lord Handsworth's sister?" he asked.

      "Yes. Ain't I telling you so? Ruth Handsworth she was, but I don't think I ever knew her. She was of the second family, and I never saw much of the old man after he married again. Well, Francis Parry suggested walking over with my son. He's a friend of these people. So we thought we might as well drop ceremony and all come. Have you got a clothing-club in this village?"

      In the meantime, on the other side of the fire-place, old Mr. Pemberton was giving his host some information about the previous inhabitants of the Abbey. He was rather deaf, and addressed his opponent in conversation as if his disability were the common lot of humankind, which probably accounted for the high vocal tone of the Pemberton family in general. "When I was a young fellow," he was saying, "there was no house in the neighb'r'ood more popular than this. There were four Brett girls, and all of them as pretty as paint. All we young fellows from twenty miles round and more were quarrelling about them. They all stuck together and wouldn't look at a soul of us—not for years—and then they all married in a bunch, and not a single one of them into the county. I was in love with the eldest myself, but I was only a boy at Eton and she was twenty-four. If it had been the other way about we might have kept one of them. Good old times those were. The young fellows used to ride over here, or drive their dog-carts, which were just beginning to come in in those days, and those who couldn't afford horseflesh used to walk. There were one or two sporting parsons in the neighb'r'ood then, and some nice young fellows from the Rectories. Sir Charles Dawbarn, the judge—his father was rector of Feltham when I was a young fellow. He wanted to marry the second one, but she wouldn't look at him. Nice fellow he was too. They don't seem to send us the parsons they used to in the old days. We've got a fellow at Grays goes about in a cassock, just like a priest. Behaves like one too. Asked my wife when he first came if she'd ever been to confession. Ha! ha! ha! She told him what she thought of him. But he's not a bad fellow, and we get on all right. What sort of a fellow have you got here? They can make themselves an infernal nuisance sometimes if they're not the right sort; and not many of them are nowadays, at least in these parts."

      "That's our Vicar talking to Mrs. Pemberton," said Grafton in as low a voice as he thought would penetrate.

      "Eh! What!" shouted the old man. "Gobbless my soul! Yes. I didn't notice he was a parson. Hope he didn't hear what I said. Hate to hurt anybody's feelings. Let's get further away. I've had enough of this fire."

      Miss Waterhouse was talking to Mrs. Mercer by one of the windows, and all the young people had congregated round the further fire-place. The two older men joined them, and presently there was a suggestion of going over the house to see what had been done with it.

      Mollie found herself with Beatrix, who, as she told her mother afterwards, was very sweet to her, not allowing her to feel out of it, though there were so many people there, and she was the least important of all of them. She was not alone with Beatrix however. Bertie Pemberton stuck close to them, and took the leading part in the conversation, though Beatrix did her share, with a dexterous unflustered ability which Mollie, who said very little, could not but admire. She judged Bertie Pemberton to be immensely struck with Beatrix, and did not wonder at it. She herself was beginning to have that enthusiastic admiration for her which generous girls accord to others more beautiful and more gifted than themselves. Everything about Beatrix pleased her—her lovely face and delicious colouring, the grace of her young form, the way she did her hair, the way she wore her pretty clothes. And she was as 'nice' as she was beautiful, with no affectations about her, and no 'airs,' which she very well might have given herself, considering how richly she was endowed by nature and circumstance. That Bertie Pemberton seemed to admire her in much the same way as Mollie herself disposed her to like him, though her liking was somewhat touched with awe, for he was of the sort of young man whom Mollie in her retired life had looked upon as of a superior order, with ways that would be difficult to cope with if chance should ever bring one of them into her own orbit. He was, in fact, a good-natured young man, employed temporarily with stocks and shares until he should succeed to the paternal acres, of the pattern of other young men who had received a conventionally expensive education and gained a large circle of acquaintances thereby, if no abiding interest in the classical studies which had formed its basis. He seemed to be well satisfied with himself, and indeed there was no reason why he should not have been, since so far there had been little that he had wanted in life which he had not obtained. If he should chance to want Beatrix in the near future, which Mollie, looking forward as she listened and observed, thought not unlikely, there might be some obstacles to surmount, but at this stage there was nothing to daunt him. He handled the situation in the way dictated by his temperament and experience, kept up a free flow of good-humoured chaff, and under cover of it expressed admiration that had to be fenced with, but never went beyond the point at which it would have been necessary for his satisfaction that a third party should not have been present. As Beatrix, with her arm in Mollie's, took pains to include her in the conversation, he couldn't ignore Mollie; nor did he appear to wish to do so. She was a pretty girl too, and he was only using his ordinary methods with a pretty girl. If she would have found a difficulty in fencing with him in the manner he would have expected of her had they been alone together, she was spared the exercise, as Beatrix lightly took her defence on her own shoulders.

      As Bertie Pemberton did not lower his voice below the family pitch, Mollie was a little anxious lest some of his speeches should come to the ear of the Vicar, who was not far removed from them as they started on their tour of investigation. He seemed, however, to have found an unexpected satisfaction in the society of Mrs. Pemberton, on whom he was in close attendance, with a back the contour of which expressed deference. She appeared to be giving him advice upon certain matters in connection with his own parish, and drawing upon his sympathy in matters connected with her own. Just before Bertie Pemberton managed to let the rest of the party get a room or two ahead, by showing great interest in the old books with which the library was furnished, Mollie heard her say to him in her carrying voice: "Well, you must come over and see it for yourself. I don't know why we've never met you; but Abington is rather beyond our beat, unless there's something or somebody to come for. It's such a pleasure to meet a sensible clergyman. I wish there were more of them."

      Mollie was glad that her friend had impressed the loud-speaking rather formidable lady in this way, but was inclined to wonder what he would do with the invitation, for he knew what he thought of the Pembertons; and he had so often announced that he would have nothing whatever to do with such people, and was glad that they were so far away. She had heard the story of Bertie Pemberton's rudeness to him, but saw now how it might have been. Bertie's free manner might easily be taken for rudeness by somebody who did

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