‘You can say,’ said Mab, ‘that it was a starving time, and if they didn’t hear the good news they would have to give in--after holding out till they were nearly dead: though I can’t make out,’ added that young lady, ‘if the country was so free as that, and Loris and the other two could ride a whole day without any one disturbing them, why the town should be starving? But you are not called upon to explain. They would like the “Pied Piper” still better, you know,’ she continued reflectively. ‘It’s easier to understand. They want a story, and they want it to go quick, without reflections--like this,’ said the experienced little woman of the parish, striking her hands together, which startled them all. ‘There are nothing but vulgar stories that do that--claptrap things, things that ladies and gentlemen could not listen to,’ said Emmy Plowden. ‘Oh, what does it matter about the ladies and gentlemen? I should not care a bit for them. There is that new Indian man, that writes the stories--a man with a curious name; but, then, they are not _good_ stories at all. The soldiers drink and swear, and that would never do. Is it necessary to drink and swear in order to have “go” in you?’ said Mab. ‘As for your old Ingoldsby, they see it’s meant to be fun, and they laugh. But they don’t care.’ ‘I fear,’ said Florence, always with that little sharp tone in her voice, ‘that Jim will have to take what he has got, instead of waiting till the right thing comes.’ ‘Is the new schoolmistress going to do something?’ said Miss Grey. ‘I heard a report---- I don’t like the looks of that woman, but she is as clever as ever she can be. She could do Lady Macbeth, or--anything she likes. And she knows--quantities of things, far too much for a village schoolmistress. I have seen her somewhere before, I am certain, and she is quite out of her place here. But why doesn’t Mr. Osborne get hold of her, and see what she could do? She’d make them attend, I’ll warrant you! There wouldn’t be much wandering attention if she were there.’ ‘It’s a pity,’ said Jim stiffly, ‘that she could not hear you, Miss Grey: for she said the ladies would not like it if she appeared.’ ‘She thinks she could throw us all into the shade,’ said Florence--‘we should be jealous of her, I suppose.’ ‘Yes,’ said Jim, ‘of course she would; she would throw everybody here into the shade.’ He spoke with a little fervour, forgetting, unhappy boy! that he had no right to know anything whatever of Mrs. Brown. ‘Jim, how should you know?’ said Emmy, mildly; and then, to make bad worse, Jim stumbled into an explanation how he had gone to her from Mr. Osborne, and how she had laughed, and ‘said’ something to him, ‘a piece of poetry,’ Jim called it, which made his hair stand upright on his head; but after that, she had refused, saying, ‘No, no; the ladies would not have it, the ladies would not like it.’