They walked through the sunlit churchyard in constrained silence, Miss Gentry feeling as if the steam-roller had gone over roses. But stimulated by the iron pole and the four steps, by which ladies who rode pillion anciently mounted and dismounted, she began wondering who would be making the bride’s dress. That gave Jinny a happy idea. How if she got Miss Gentry the work—that would be a slight return for all she owed her! “Why shouldn’t _you_ make it?” she inquired excitedly. “I could speak to Mr. Flippance, now that I know where he is.” “Hush, child, don’t profane the Sabbath! Men don’t count in wedding matters,” said Miss Gentry in complex correction. “Nor would I care about the patronage of stage people.” “But she mayn’t be stage.” “Like runs to like,” Miss Gentry sighed, and Jinny felt the Colchester romance hovering again. But it did not descend. Instead, Miss Gentry remarked that she ought to have known that it could not be a local beauty. No play-actor with any brains at all could be attracted by anything hereabouts, especially when they could not achieve the acquaintance of women of real attraction and intellect, these preferring the company of cats to that of strolling sinners. Nevertheless, far be it from her wilfully to rob Jinny of a commission. “I wasn’t thinking of my commission,” Jinny protested with a little flush. “I couldn’t dream of it otherwise. Squibs and I need so little and have more work than we can manage.” “Squibs?” Jinny murmured. “The place is overrun with rats,” Miss Gentry explained. “What will it be when the cold drives them in from the ditches? However, fortunately that horrible old Mawhood stands compelled to clear the cottage before winter. That was the compromise our too kindly pastor let him off with.” “So you told me. Shall I order the Deacon at once?” “The Deacon?” Miss Gentry sniffed. “Bishops they’ll call themselves next.” “There _is_ a bishop,” Jinny reminded her. “Bishop Harrod.” “Wretched little rat-catchers!” Miss Gentry hissed. “Setting themselves up against the Church Established. I’m so glad you’re done with them.” “But I’m not,” Jinny confessed shyly. “I’m still Peculiar.” “You are, indeed!” Miss Gentry cried, startled. “Do you mean to tell me that after the glorious privilege of sitting under Mr. Fallow——!” Words failed her, and they also failed Jinny, to whom this unfamiliar metaphor conjured up a puzzling picture of the vicar perched on her Sunday bonnet. The girl was the first to recover her breath. “Gran’fer told me my mother wanted me to be Peculiar,” she explained. “I can’t go against my Angel-Mother.” Then she blushed prettily, never having mentioned the angel mother since childhood, and feeling somehow as if she had profaned a sacred secret. “If your angel mother was alive,” cried Miss Gentry with conviction, “it’s to our church that she would come—to our grand old church with its storied windows!”