y did not come about the house much, unless any
of the Rockstone cousins or the younger generation were staying
there, or her brother David had come for a rest of mind and body.
Between housekeeping, gardening, parish work, and pottering, Mrs.
Merrifield and Susan never had time for reading, except that Susan
thought it her duty to keep something improving in hand, which
generally lasted her six weeks on a moderate average. The Admiral
found quite reading enough in the newspapers, pamphlets, and
business publications; and their neighbours, the Greville family,
were chiefly devoted to hunting and lawn tennis, so that there was
some reason in Mrs. Arthuret's lamentation to the Vicar that dear
Arthurine did so miss intellectual society, such as she had been
used to with the High School mistresses--two of whom had actually
been at Girton!

'Does she not get on with Bessie Merrifield?' he asked.

'Miss Bessie has a very sweet face; Arthurine did say she seemed
well informed and more intelligent than her sister. Perhaps
Arthurine might take her up. It would be such an advantage to the
poor girl.'

'Which?' was on Mr. Doyle's tongue, but he restrained it, and only
observed that Bessie had lived for a good many years in London.

'So I understood,' said Arthurine, 'but with an old grandmother, and
that is quite as bad as if it was in the country; but I will see
about it. I might get up a debating society, or one for studying
German.'

In the meantime Arthurine decided on improving and embellishing the
parish with a drinking fountain, and meeting Bessie one afternoon in
the village, she started the idea.

'But,' said Bessie, 'there is a very good supply. Papa saw that
good water was accessible to all the houses in the village street
ten years ago, and the outlying ones have wells, and there's the
brook for the cattle.'

'I am sure every village should have a fountain and a trough, and I
shall have it here instead of this dirty corner.'

'Can you get the ground?'

'Oh, any one would give ground for such a purpose! Whose is it?'

'Mr. Grice's, at Butter End.'

The next time Susan and Bessie encountered Arthurine, she began--

'Can you or Admiral Merrifield do nothing with that horrid old
Grice! Never was any one so pigheaded and stupid.'

'What? He won't part with the land you want?'

'No; I wrote to him and got no answer. Then I wrote again, and I
got a peaked-hand sort of note that his wife wrote, I sh