njoyed
the privilege of hearing the visitors arrive and of catching stray sounds
and words without the connecting phrases that made them entertaining, to
judge from the laughter they evoked. The arrivals passed through the
house and went into the garden, where they had tea in a large
summer-house, an occasional blink of bright colour, through the foliage,
being all that was visible of the assembly from Mrs. Garland's windows.
When it grew dusk they all could be heard coming indoors to finish the
evening in the parlour.

Then there was an intensified continuation of the above-mentioned signs
of enjoyment, talkings and haw-haws, runnings upstairs and runnings down,
a slamming of doors and a clinking of cups and glasses; till the proudest
adjoining tenant without friends on his own side of the partition might
have been tempted to wish for entrance to that merry dwelling, if only to
know the cause of these fluctuations of hilarity, and to see if the
guests were really so numerous, and the observations so very amusing as
they seemed.

The stagnation of life on the Garland side of the party-wall began to
have a very gloomy effect by the contrast. When, about half-past nine
o'clock, one of these tantalizing bursts of gaiety had resounded for a
longer time than usual, Anne said, 'I believe, mother, that you are
wishing you had gone.'

'I own to feeling that it would have been very cheerful if we had joined
in,' said Mrs. Garland, in a hankering tone. 'I was rather too nice in
listening to you and not going. The parson never calls upon us except in
his spiritual capacity. Old Derriman is hardly genteel; and there's
nobody left to speak to. Lonely people must accept what company they can
get.'

'Or do without it altogether.'

'That's not natural, Anne; and I am surprised to hear a young woman like
you say such a thing. Nature will not be stifled in that way. . . .'
(Song and powerful chorus heard through partition.) 'I declare the room
on the other side of the wall seems quite a paradise compared with this.'

'Mother, you are quite a girl,' said Anne in slightly superior accents.
'Go in and join them by all means.'

'O no--not now,' said her mother, resignedly shaking her head. 'It is
too late now. We ought to have taken advantage of the invitation. They
would look hard at me as a poor mortal who had no real business there,
and the miller would say, with his broad smile, "Ah, you be obliged to
come round."'