hem, and indeed better, being more fortunate
than they in living in Tilling.... And if there was a process in the
world which Tilling detested, it was being patronized, and there was
this woman telling them all what she felt it right and proper for her,
as Mrs. Poppit of Tilling (M.B.E.), to do, when the Heir Apparent should
pass through the town on Saturday. The rest of them, Mrs. Poppit
implied, might do what they liked, for they did not matter; but
she--she must put on her Order and make her curtsy. And Isabel, by her
expressed desire to stand beside, or even behind, her mother for this
degrading moment had showed of what stock she came.

Mrs. Poppit had nothing more to say on this subject; indeed, as Diva
reflected, there was really nothing more that could be said, unless she
suggested that they should all bow and curtsy to her for the future, and
their hostess proceeded, as they all took their leave, to hope that they
had enjoyed the bridge-party which she had been unavoidably prevented
from attending.

"But my absence made it possible to include Miss Mapp," she said. "I
should not have liked poor Miss Mapp to feel left out; I am always glad
to give Miss Mapp pleasure. I hope she won her rubber; she does not like
losing. Will no one have a little more red-currant fool? Boon has made
it very tolerably to-day. A Scotch recipe of my great-grandmother's."

Diva gave a little cackle of laughter as she enfolded herself in her
cloud again. She had heard Miss Mapp's ironical inquiry as to how the
dear King was, and had thought at the time that it was probably a pity
that Miss Mapp had said that.

* * * * *

Though abhorrence of snobbery and immunity from any taint of it was so
fine a characteristic of public social life at Tilling, the expected
passage of this distinguished visitor through the town on Saturday next
became very speedily known, and before the wicker-baskets of the ladies
in their morning marketings next day were half full, there was no
quarter which the news had failed to reach. Major Flint had it from Mrs.
Plaistow, as he went down to the eleven-twenty tram out to the
golf-links, and though he had not much time to spare (for his work last
night on his old diaries had caused him to breakfast unusually late that
morning to the accompaniment of a dismal headache from
over-application), he had stopped to converse with Miss Mapp immediately
afterwards, with one eye on the time