sed! Seeing you and Mrs Fane has made me
discontented with my dowdy old rags!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE GARDEN FETE.

The garden fete came off yesterday, and on the surface was a roaring
success. The weather was ideal; the vicarage garden proved all that was
necessary in the way of a background, and the arrangements were so
extraordinarily complete that my practical mind was constantly
confronted with the question, "Won't this _cost_ far more than it
gains?" In a big city a charity entertainment may throw out expensive
baits with a fair chance of catching a shoal of fat and unwary fish; but
in a small village the catch can be calculated to a sou. The big fish
of the neighbourhood will heave a sigh of duteous resignation, put a
five-pound note in the purse, and start for the fray prepared to spend
it all, but not one penny more! The smaller fry carry out the same
policy with ten or fifteen shillings. The minnows take half-a-crown,
with which they pay for tea, and purchase soap at the provision stall,
reporting to their husbands at night that, after all, the money was not
wasted. The Vicar might just as well have it as the grocer. All the
attractions in the world cannot worm shillings out of a public which is
so prudent and canny that it has self-guarded itself by leaving its cash
at home!

Many times over yesterday afternoon I saw the flicker of longing in
feminine eyes as they gazed upon the tempting novelties displayed upon
the stalls, but the next moment the lips would screw, the feet pass by.
Guild garments must be bought; tea paid for; tickets bought for the
novel Treasure Hunt, wherein--with luck!--one might actually _gain_ by
the outlay. The visitors lingered to gaze at the pretty china, and
glass, and embroideries with which Delphine had filled her stall; but
the afternoon wore on, and it looked as full as ever--horribly full!
There were none of those bare, blank spaces which stall-holders love to
see. At five o'clock we marked off the odd sixpences; at six o'clock we
dropped a whole shilling, but still--hardly a sale!

Delphine looked--a vision! At the first glimpse of her in her cobweb
fineries, I was ill-bred enough to gape, whereat she blushed and said
hurriedly:--

"_Your_ dressmaker! Yes! Isn't it a duck?"

And knowing the prices which Celeste charges for ducks with such
feathers, I wondered, and--feared! Did the Vicar know? Was it possible
that with his small stipend he could affor