is an old _D._ Possibly you only knew her as a tea-drinking, charming hostess, full of compliments and sweetness; the real Miss Bella is a bully, vain of her money, and shamelessly mean. “The Manor is a nice, sunny house, flat on the ground, with great oak beams and rum windows, and a splendid garden enclosed in yew hedges run to seed; they are trying to get it in order, clipping the yews and digging out the moss, but two men and a boy are not enough, and Miss P. is too stingy to employ more. As I’ve little to do, I sometimes lend a hand. The motor is a faked-up old rattle-trap, all paint and smart cushions; but its inside is worn out. Miss Parrett is under the impression that petrol is not a necessity, and I have such desperate work to get it, and she always cross-examines me so sharply, and gives the money as such a personal favour, that one would suppose I wanted the beastly thing for my own consumption. It is a riddle to me _why_ she ever bought the car. She is afraid to go out in it, and won’t let her sister use it alone. I’ve been here four weeks; it’s been out six times, always at a crawl, and within a four-mile radius. Miss Parrett likes to pay visits to show off her ‘beautiful’ car; but I feel like a Bath-chair man! “One day we went over to Westmere, the Davenants’ old place, where you used to stay. The Woolcocks, who have it now, are enormously rich, go-ahead people, and the married daughter pounced on me as Owen the steward on board ship! No one here has any idea who I am, and I keep a shut mouth; and when I do talk, I try to copy Tom Hogben. There are few gentry about,--that is, in Ottinge; the parson, Mr. Morven, the Parretts’ brother-in-law, comes in sometimes and gives advice about the garden. He is a cheery sort, elderly, a widower, and a splendid preacher--thrown away on this dead-and-alive spot. His sermons are sensible and modern, and you’ve something to carry away and think of, instead of wanting to shy hymn-books, or go to sleep. The church is a tremendous age, and restored--the Ottinge folk are very proud of it. In one chancel, the north chancel, lie our kin the Davenants; there is a fine window, erected by a certain Edward Davenant to the memory of his wife, the lady in a pink scarf--quite a smart get-up of, say, a hundred years ago, is represented as one of the angels, and he himself is among the disciples. Both were copied from family portraits. What do you think of the idea?