"But Miss Vancourt," interrupted Mrs. Keeley, who had been listening to her friend's flow of language in silent wonder,--"She don't eat an' drink like that, do she?"
"Miss Maryllia, bless 'er 'art, sits at her table like a little queen,"--said Mrs. Spruce, with emotion--"Primmins sez she don't eat scarce nothin', and don't say much neither. She just smiles pretty, an' puts in a word or two, an' then seems lookin' away as if she saw somethink beautiful which nobody else can see. An' that Miss Cicely Bourne, she's just a pickle!--'ow she do play the comic, to be sure!--she ran into the still-room the other day an' danced round like a mad thing, an' took off all the ladies with their airs an' graces till I nearly died o' larfin'! She's a good little thing, though, takin' 'er all round, though a bit odd in 'er way, but that comes of bein' in France an' learnin' music, I expect. But I really must be goin'--there's heaps an' heaps to do, but by an' by we'll have peace an' quiet again--they're all a-goin' next week."
"Well, I shan't be sorry!"--and Mrs. Keeley gave a short sigh of satisfaction--"I'm fair sick o' seein' them motor-cars whizzin' through the village makin' such a dust an' smell as never was,--an' I'm sure there's no love lost 'tweens Missis Frost an' me, but it do make me worrited like when that there little Ipsie goes runnin' out, not knowin' whether she mayn't be run over like my Bob's pet dog. For the quality don't seem to care for no one 'cept theirselves--an' it ain't peaceful like nor safe as 'twas 'fore they came. An' I s'pose we'll be seein' Miss Maryllia married next?"
Mrs. Spruce pursed up her mouth tightly and looked unutterable things.
"'Tain't no good countin' chickens 'fore they're hatched, Missis Keeley!" she said--"An' the Lord sometimes fixes up marriages in quite a different way to what we expects. There ain't goin' to be no weddin's nor buryin's yet in the Manor, please the A'mighty goodness, for one's as mis'able as t'other, an' both means change, which sometimes is good for the 'elth but most often contrariwise, though whatever 'appens either way we must bend our 'eads under the rod to both. But I mustn't stay chitterin' 'ere any longer--good day t'ye!"
And nodding darkly as one who could say much an' she would, the worthy woman ambled away.
Scraps of information, such as this talk of Mrs. Spruce's, reached Bainton's ears from time to time in a disjointed and desultory manner and moved him to profound cogitation. He was not quite sure now whether, after all, his liking for Miss Vancourt had not been greatly misplaced.