"No, I've a message from the Mater for you and Merle. Oh, here's your groom! Yes, just give her a wipe down, please" (as Tom led Armorelle away to the stable), "she's too fat and gets easily hot! Ugh! It's rather a horrid day. The Mater wanted to send me in the car, but I said I'd rather ride." "Won't you come into the house?" asked Mavis. "Or into our den?" invited Merle. "We've made the harness room into a snuggery." "By Jove! Not a bad idea, that! Yes, take me there. I'm too splashed to be fit for the drawing-room. I say, this is no end! What a decent fire you've got!" "You know Bevis? And this is our Cousin Clive," said Mavis, performing the introductions. Tudor nodded, flung himself into a basket chair and looked round the room with some amusement. "It's like you two!" he vouchsafed. "_I_ should never have thought of taking over the harness room! 'Pon my word, it's cosy! You won't want to turn out when I tell you what I've come for!" "Turn out where?" "Well, it's a long story. You see there are some new people come to live in Chagmouth--an artist with a family about a yard long. Of course, the Mater goes and calls and gushes and comes back talking about beauty and talent and all the rest of it. She's an eye to business though, has the Mater! Mr. Colville had asked her to get up a concert in aid of something or other, I don't know what it's for! The new Vicar's as bad as the old one for wanting money, and the Mater's perpetually raising the wind for the parish with entertainments. She's worked all her local stars rather hard, so you can imagine she pounced upon anybody new, and got them to promise about half the programme. She came back purring. There was the other half of the programme, though, to be fixed up. The Girl Guides had learnt a dialogue, so she said they might as well act it, and she had the posters printed and sent the school children round selling tickets." "Well?" said Mavis, as Tudor paused for breath. "I'm coming to the point fast enough! It seems the principal characters in the dialogue are three sisters, and yesterday one of them developed measles! The other two are contact cases and, of course, they're not allowed on the boards. You can't act 'Hamlet' without the Prince of Denmark and Ophelia and Polonius! It's the same business here. The dialogue has collapsed like a pricked balloon!" "Have they no understudies?"