When a girl in the wrong set was spoken to or patronized by a frump in the other, she showed herself to be greatly pleased, and became quite cool and “distant” with her own associates; and when one of the frumps snubbed the ambitions of a girl in the wrong set, all the other girls in the wrong set became chilling in their attitude to that girl; and a knowledge of these facts may perhaps account for the impression which was very general in other parts of the county that Framsby was a queer place, and that its precious “sets” might be roughly classified as toads and toadies. It was clearly understood that Framsby was an awful place for strangers to come to. No matter how clever they were--no matter how greatly distinguished in the world outside Framsby--they were not visited, except by the tradesmen, until they had been resident for at least two years. This circumstance, however, by no means raised an insurmountable barrier between them and the people who were hunting up subscribers for some of their numerous “objects.” The newcomers were invariably called on for subscriptions by the very cream of the aristocracy of Framsby--subscriptions to the Hospital, to the Maternity Home, to the School Treats, to the Decayed Gardeners’ Fund, the Decayed Gentlewomen’s Fund, the Poor Brave Things’ Fund, the Zenana Missions Fund, the Guild of St. Michael and All Angels Fund, the Guild of Repentant Motherhood (affiliated with the Guild of St. Salome), and the Guild of Aimless Idlers. These and a score of equally excellent “objects” were without any delay brought under the notice of all newcomers; so that if the old inhabitants showed themselves to be extremely discourteous and inhospitable in regard to strangers, it must be acknowledged that they made up for their neglect of social “calls” by the frequency and the persistence of their visitations when they thought there was anything to be got out of them. And these were the people for whose patronage Phineas Wadhurst’s wife pined all her life, and it was solely that her daughter might one day be received by some of the best set in Framsby that she agreed with her sister that Priscilla should be “finished” at a school the fees of which were notoriously exorbitant.