“Jane, of course,” she snorted. “Fortunately, I met the postman, or I should never have known.” She tapped a letter with meaning. “She’s still doing it.” The Rector knew better than to inquire the nature of the iniquity. Mrs. Blewitt believed in remembering her servants’ offences and expected this belief to be shared. He assumed an aggravated look. “How very trying,” he said, playing for safety. “I should say to her that the next time she does it——” “Does what?” said his wife. The Rector started guiltily. “I understood you to say, my dear,” he faltered, “that she was still doing it.” “So she is,” said his wife. The Reverend Purdoe Blewitt put a hand to his head. “It’s not nice of her,” he said, blindly endeavouring to avoid collision. “Not at all nice. I mean——” Here he observed that his wife was surveying him with a profound contempt, and quailed accordingly. The appearance of a pert parlourmaid postponed his chastisement. “Jane,” said Mrs. Blewitt, at once averting her face and stretching forth the letter as though it were some contagious body, “I suppose it is not the slightest good desiring you to remember that your address is not _The Rectory, Loughbridge_, but _c/o The Rev. Purdoe Blewitt, The Rectory, Loughbridge_. However, for what it is worth, I will again point out that, even if you were here as a guest—which you are not—it would be the essence of bad taste to omit the Rector’s name from the head of your notepaper.” “An’ if,” sweetly rejoined Miss Townshend, taking the letter, “if your gues’s frien’s—not knowin’ you—didn’t take no notice of what was wrote at the ’ead of the notepaper, I s’pose your gues’s ’ld still get it in the neck.” Mrs. Purdoe Blewitt recoiled, and the Rector emitted a protesting noise. “You know, you’re too particular to live, you are; and p’raps you’ll take this as notice. Servants aren’t no good to you. What you want is ’alf a dozen Archangels—and then you’ld show ’em ’ow to wear their wings.” Apparently unable to speak, Mrs. Blewitt, crimson with fury, clawed at the air, while the Rector, feeling that something must be done, rose to his feet and cleared his throat. Ere words came, however, Miss Townshend was out of the room. The look of her letter was promising. This had been addressed to ‘Roughbridge,’ but, there being no such place, the Post Office had risen to the occasion and above the mistake. * * * * * Five days had gone by since Mrs. Purdoe Blewitt had been so annoyed, and Pardoner and Miss Vulliamy were dining together, ostensibly to discuss arrangements for their alliance, actually because they enjoyed each other’s company. “I wonder she hasn’t replied,” said Sarah, obediently sipping her champagne. Virgil shrugged his shoulders. “I daresay she won’t,” he said. “She’s very considerate. I mean, it’s delicate ground, and it’ld be just like June if she sank her own feelings and, er, let bygones be bygones.” His fiancée shook her head.