Mrs. Turle, anxious for perfect harmony, and knowing--also sharing--the local skepticism regarding Mrs. Clutton’s husband, put in blandly: “Mr. Clutton is a journalist. He has gone for a tour round the world.” “Oh!” Maria Furlonger’s wide smile full in Mrs. Clutton’s face was a little dangerous. Mrs. Turle added quite irrelevantly: “Poor Mrs. Peter Hone has another baby. That’s twelve.” “Sympathy is wasted on the poorer classes,” Mrs. Clutton put in, with her calm, dogmatic air. “You pet them too much. Once it was lap-dogs; now it’s paupers. Any old dame with a clean apron and a courtesy, any old man with his trousers tied round the calf and his chin like stubble, can take you in. Merely a question of livery! Now, it is the man in the top hat who wants petting--the man who is at his wits’ end to keep up his insurance payments.” The tea bell rang. They all filed solemnly into the dining-room. Maria Furlonger, who was rather taken with Pamela’s silence, which, of course, meant modesty, began to tell her graciously about the old Manor House at Carrsland, where her father, Jethro’s mother’s brother, had been born. “It’s a very old place. There is a moat all round. It has been filled up.” “I am so glad it has been filled,” cried another cousin. “It was so awkward, so dangerous. You see”--addressing herself to Pamela--“it was just under the drawing-room window, and a lady might so easily have fallen out. What a terrible thing it would be for a lady to fall out of her own drawing-room window--into a moat!” “When ladies have a tendency that way they should sign the pledge,” said Mrs. Clutton tersely. Nancy, meeting her mother’s diplomatic eye, rushed into the breach: “Have you heard about the nice butcher boy?” “That boy at Churnside’s?” “Yes. He has stolen ten pounds. They have arrested him.” “Dishonesty on a small scale never pays,” said Mrs. Clutton. “Honesty is really the best policy--now that we have such an excellent police force.” She was putting on her gloves, and they looked at each other with secret satisfaction. She seemed anxious to go. She looked as if the double row of placid faces irritated her. Mrs. Turle and Nancy kissed her. The former said: “Come in again soon; we see so little of you. And take a tonic, dear--you’re really looking run down.” “What a vulgar person!” said Maria Furlonger, when the place was clear of her. Annie Jayne--the Jaynes of the “Mount”--said: “She struck me as being a little weak--mentally. Dear mother used to say that no properly-balanced woman should have opinions of her own--outside the domestic circle.” “I must say that some of her remarks are in bad taste,” Mrs. Turle admitted gently. It was her policy to offend nobody, to speak ill of nobody; ill-natured remarks never helped your social ascent. “She’s quite incorrigible,” one of the Jeremy Crisps said. “Do you know that she cut Mr. Meadows?” “She didn’t!” “She _did!_” “The clergyman of the parish! A rural dean!”