But after Mr. and Mrs. Harefield had been living at the Water House three months, the slightest allusion to one of these once favourite scandals would have been about as great a solecism as any one in Little Yafford could be guilty of. The ancient slanders were sunk in the Red Sea of oblivion. Those who had been most active in disseminating these rumours forgot all about them--could not have taxed their memory with the slightest detail, would have looked quite puzzled if any underbred intruder in polite society had questioned them on the subject, or recalled former assertions. There was a dignity about Christian Harefield, a subdued elegance about his lovely wife, which made such stories as Little Yafford had formerly believed in obviously and distinctly impossible. _He_ marry a ballet-girl dancer, the proudest of men! _She_ sell penny bunches of violets, the most aristocratic of women! All the best people of Little Yafford visited the Water House, and swore by Mrs. Harefield. She was not a woman to make her influence widely felt even in that quiet circle. Beauty and elegance were her chief gifts. She was passionately fond of music--played exquisitely, in a style which was poetic rather than brilliant--sang sweetly--but not with the power of voice or splendour of execution which would have justified the story of her having been a prima donna. She had graceful manners, and distinction of bearing; but the leading spirits in Little Yafford--Mrs. Dulcimer, Lady Jane Gowry, and an old Mrs. Dunraven--decided that she had not much mind. ‘She can only look lovely, my dear, and curtsey in that foreign way of hers, which reminds me of my young days, when ladies behaved like ladies, and good manners had not begun to get obsolete,’ said Lady Jane to her dear Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘She can only look elegant, and sit at her piano, and suffer us to admire her, just as we should if she were the Venus de Milo in the Louvre. I don’t think she has much more feeling or passion than that one-armed statue; but she is quite as lovely, and I suppose that is enough for Mr. Harefield.’