"I dare say she did," said Mrs. Cushion grimly; "and there was many as would have gone, too, if they’d had the chanst. If it’s not taking a liberty, miss, was you exactly _draw’d_ to Mrs. Robinson?" "Certainly not," I replied. "I couldn’t get on with her at all. Are they popular in the parish?" "It’s not for me to say, miss. I left two months after they did come. They was new brooms, you see, and swep’ away a lot of old customs. They wasn’t like the Reverend ’ere—he’s all for ’live and let live’—but they was all for making every one live as they thought proper. I don’t say they was wrong, and I don’t say they was right, but whichever it was, it weren’t peaceable. "But," concluded Mrs. Cushion, "I’ve no business gossiping here, and you wanting your tea." So she left me to my tea and the reflection that she had neither contradicted nor confirmed Mrs. Robinson’s statement. During the next couple of days I was conscious of a certain constraint in our, hitherto, completely cordial relationship. Mrs. Cushion was just as careful as ever for my comfort—everything was just as well done, and meals as punctual, and rooms spick and span as before; but I missed something. I missed the interest she used to take in me and the interest she allowed me to take in her. She was still the perfect landlady, but I grievously missed the frank and genial human being. I had lunched with the vicar and his guests on Tuesday. On Friday afternoon Mrs. Cushion got a lift into "Ziren" to do some shopping, and I had to take my own letters to the post office. I met the vicar on his way to call on me, and he turned back and walked with me, and I speedily perceived that something worried him. The vicar is stout and gouty, and walks but slowly. We only just caught the post, and then he asked me to go with him to the vicarage to look at a black dahlia in his garden before the first frosts took it. In the garden he stopped long before we came to the dahlias and exclaimed, "I’ve heard from that vexatious woman." "Mrs. Robinson?" "Yes; just read her letter."