n't
tell any one because once she told me a great secret about herself.
Besides, she's gone to buy cakes for tea, and if I don't take Guy she'll
be so dreadfully disappointed."

"Why can't you take Guy without saying anything about being engaged?"
asked Mrs. Grey.

"Oh, because Miss Verney is so frightfully sharp, especially in matters
of love. I think you don't like her much, Mother darling but really, you
know, she is sympathetic."

Mrs. Grey looked hopelessly round for advice, but as neither Margaret
nor Monica was in the room, she had to give way to Pauline's entreaty,
and the leave was granted.

When Guy arrived at the Rectory about three o'clock he seemed delighted
at the notion of going out to tea with Pauline, though he looked a
little doubtfully at the others, as if he wondered at the permission's
being accorded. However, they set out in an atmosphere of good-will, and
Pauline was happy to have him beside her walking up Wychford High
Street. Miss Verney's house was at the very top of the hill, which meant
that the eyes of the whole population had to be encountered before they
reached it. They could see Miss Verney watching for them as they walked
across the slip of grass that with white posts and a festoon of white
chains warded off general traffic. The moment they reached the gate her
head vanished from the window, and they had scarcely rung the bell when
the maid had opened the door; and they were scarcely inside the hall
when Miss Verney came grandly out of the drawing-room (which was not the
front room) to greet them.

"How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Miss Grey will have told you that I rarely
have visitors. And therefore this is a great pleasure."

Pauline threw sparkling blue glances at Guy for the Miss Grey, while
they followed her into the drawing-room full of cats and ornaments. The
cats all marched round Guy in a sort of solemn quadrille, so that what
with the embarrassment they caused to his legs and the difficulty that
the rest of him found with the ornaments, Pauline really had to lead him
safely to a chair.

"Have you been long in Wychford, Mr. Hazlewood?" inquired Miss Verney.
"I fear you'll find the valley very damp. We who live at the top of the
hill consider the air up here so much more bracing. But then, you see,
my father was a sailor."

So the conversation progressed, conversation that was cut as thinly and
nicely as the lozenges of bread and butter, fragments of which on
various parts