“Fancy?”

“That’s what he calls her-I believe her name is Frances. And I suppose we shall hear that they are engaged-or married!” She gave a hearty laugh. “Or perhaps not-you never can tell, can you? You’d have thought once bitten, twice shy. Carr’s been married already-another of these flighty blonde girls. She ran off with someone, and died. It’s only about two years ago, and you’d have thought it would have made him more careful.”

“She is very pretty,” said Miss Silver mildly.

Mrs. Voycey snorted in the manner for which she had so often been reproved at school.

“Men haven’t a particle of sense,” she declared.

They came out of the lane upon a typically rural scene-a village green complete with pond and ducks; the church with its old graveyard; the Vicarage; the village inn with its swinging sign depicting a wheatsheaf whose original gold was now almost indistinguishable from a faded background; the entrance pillars and lodge of a big house; a row of cottages, their gardens still bright with sunflower, phlox, and michaelmas daisy.

“I’m just on the other side of the Green,” said Mrs. Voycey. She took a hand off the wheel to point. “That’s the Vicarage next the church-much too big for Mr. Ainger. He’s a bachelor, but his sister keeps house for him. I don’t like her-I never did-though I don’t say she doesn’t make herself useful in the village, because she does. He’d like to marry Rietta Cray, but she won’t have him-I don’t know why, because he’s a very charming person. Anyhow, that’s Rietta’s house, the little white one with the hedge. Her father was our doctor-very much respected.