The artless youth prattled on, and Lucy gathered that the lady with the false front was a sort of female _arbiter elegantarium_ to Hornham, indubitably the richest person there, a leading light. She saw her brother talking to the woman in an eager way. He seemed afraid of her,--as, indeed, the poor man was, under the present circumstances,--and Lucy resented it. With a quick feminine eye, she saw that Miss Pritchett was assuming an air of tolerance, of patronage even, to the vicar. At last, Bernard caught sight of her. His face became relieved at once and he led the spinster to the place where she was sitting. Every instinct of the girl rose up in dislike and rebellion as the woman drew near. She had felt nothing of the sort with the other people. In this case, it was quite different. She prepared to repel cavalry, to use the language of the military text-books. On the surface, the incident was simple and commonplace enough. A well-bred girl felt a repulsion for an obviously unpleasant and patronising woman of inferior social rank. That was all. It is a trite and well-worn aphorism that no event is trivial, yet it is extraordinarily true. Who could have said that this casual meeting was to be fraught with storm and danger for the Church in England; that out of a hostile handshake between two women a mighty scandal and tumult was to rise? Miss Pritchett came up to Lucy, and Father Blantyre introduced her. Then, with an apologetic murmur, he hurried away to another part of the garden. "Won't you sit down?" Lucy said, looking at the chair that had been left vacant by her late companion. "Thank you, Miss Blantyre, but I've been sitting in my carriage. I should prefer to stand, if it's the same to you," said Miss Pritchett. Lucy rose. "Perhaps you would like to walk round the grounds?" she asked. "Probably I know the grounds better than you," the elder woman answered with a patronage which was bordering on the purely ludicrous. "This residence was one of my dear father's houses, as were many of the Hornham houses. When the vicar acquired the property, the brewery trustees sold it to him, though I think it far from suitable for a parish clergyman." "Well, yes," Lucy answered. "It certainly is a dingy, gloomy old place, but what else can you expect down here?" Miss Pritchett flushed and tossed her head till the aigrette in her smart little bonnet shook like a leaf. "One is liable to be misunderstood," she said. "Your brother's small private means enable him to live in a house which the next vicar or any ordinary clergyman could hardly hope for." "It _is_ very good of Bernard to come down here and spend his life in such an impossible place," Lucy said. She was thoroughly angry now and quite determined to give the woman a lesson. Her impertinence was insufferable. To hear this creature speak of Bernard's income of three thousand a year--every penny of which he gave away or spent for good--in this way was unendurable.