Upminster, crossed himself as he muttered in his
friend's ear:

"We'll get no swag to-night, Jeb. When she passes, blest if she don't
warn the beasts."

CHAPTER X

When Halcyone was nearly nineteen and had grown into a rare and radiant
maiden, the like of whom it would be difficult to find, an event
happened which was of the greatest excitement and importance to the
neighborhood. Wendover, which had been shut up for twenty years, was
reported to have been taken for a term by a very rich widow--or
_divorcee_--from America it was believed, and it was going to be
sumptuously done up and would be filled with guests. Mr. Miller took
pains to find out every detail from the Long Man at Applewood, and so
was full of information at his monthly repast with the old ladies. Mrs.
Vincent Cricklander was the new tenant's name. The Long Man had himself
taken her over the place when she first came down to look at it, and his
report was that she was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, and
with an eye to business that could not be beaten. He held her in vast
respect.

Then Mr. Miller coughed; he had now come to the point of his discourse
which made him nervous.

For he had learned beyond the possibility of any doubt that Mrs.
Cricklander was, alas! not a lonely widow but had been divorced--only a
year or two ago. She had divorced her husband--not he her--he hastened
to add, and then coughed again and got very red.

"When we were young," Miss La Sarthe remarked severely, "our Mamma would
never have allowed us to know any divorced person--and, indeed, our good
Queen Victoria would never have received one at her Court. We cannot
possibly call, Roberta."

Poor Miss Roberta's face fell. She had been secretly much elated by the
thoughts of a neighbor, and to have all her hopes thus nipped in the bud
was painful. She had heard (from Hester again, it is to be feared!) that
Mrs. Cricklander's maid, who was a cousin of the baker in Applewood, and
who had originally instigated her discovery of Wendover, had said that
her lady knew all the greatest people in England--lords and duchesses by
the dozen, and even an archbishop! Surely that was respectable enough.

But Miss La Sarthe, while again deploring the source of her sister's
information, was firm. Ideas might have changed, but _they_ had not.
Since the last time they had curtsied to the beloved late Queen, in
about 1879, she believed new rules had been made, but the La Sar