boil. Horse-racin' on Sundays, an' folks goin' to
theaters instead of church. France more civilized than England,
indeed! What'll you be sayin' next?"

"I'll be saying that if our little friend behaves himself I shall ask
him to dine here tomorrow."

"He's axed himself, Mr. Trenholme, an' he's bringing another one, a
big fellow, who knows how to use a carvin'-knife, he says. What would
you like for dinner?"

Trenholme fled. That question was becoming a daily torment. The
appearance of Furneaux had alone saved him from being put on the
culinary rack after luncheon; having partaken of one good meal, he
never had the remotest notion as to his requirements for the next.

He wandered through the village, calling at a tobacconist's, and
looking in on his friend the barber. All tongues were agog with
wonder. The Fenley family, known to that district of Hertfordshire
during the greater part of a generation, was subjected to merciless
criticism. He heard gossip of Mr. Robert, of Mr. Hilton, even of the
recluse wife, now a widow; but every one had a good word for "Miss
Sylvia."

"We don't see enough of her, an' that's a fact," said the barber. "She
must find life rather dull, cooped up there as she is, for all that
it's a grand house an' a fine park. They never had company like the
other big houses. A few bald-headed City men an' their wives for an
occasional week end in the summer or when the coverts were shot in
October--never any nice young people. Miss Sylvia wept when the
rector's daughter got married last year, an' well I knew why--she was
losin' her only chum."

"Surely there are scores of good families in this neighborhood?"

"Plenty, sir, but nearly all county. The toffs never did take on the
Fenleys, an', to be fair, I don't believe the poor man who's dead ever
bothered his head about them."

"But Miss Manning can not have lived here all her life? She must have
been abroad, at school, for instance?"

"Well, yes, sir. I remember her comin' home from Brussels two years
ago. But school ain't society. The likes of her, with all her money,
should mix with her own sort."

"Is she so wealthy, then?"

"She's Mr. Fenley's ward, an' the servants at The Towers say she'll
come in for a heap when she's twenty-one, which will be next year."

Somehow, this item of gossip, confirming Eliza's statement, was
displeasing. Sylvia Manning, nymph of the lake, receded to some dim
altitude where the high and mighty are enthrone