"Like enough, sir. They do say 'at----" "Yes?"---as she came to a sudden stop. "'Tain't for the likes o' me, sir, to talk about my betters," said Mrs. Jex, with a doubtful shake of the head. "Oh, the parson hears everything, you know, and he never repeats what he hears. What do they say about the boys? Are they twins? They're as like as can be, and just of an age, as far as I could see." "Well, sir," said Mrs. Jex, with another shake, "there's more to that than I can say, an' I'm not that sure but what it's more'n anybody can say." "Why, what do you mean? That sounds odd." "Ay, 'tis odd. Carne's seen some queer things, and this is one of 'em, so they do say." "I'd like to hear. I rather took to those boys. They seem to be growing up perfect little savages, learning nothing and----" "Like enough, sir." "And I thought of calling on their grandfather and seeing if he'd let me take them in hand." "Yo'd have yore hands full, from all accounts." "That's how I like them. They've been a bit overfull for a good many years, but this offers the prospect of a change anyway." "Well, yo'd best see Dr. Yool. If yo' con get him talking he con tell yo' more'n onybody else. He were there when they were born--one of 'em onyway." "Worse and worse? You're a most mysterious old lady. What's it all about?" "Yo'd better ask t' doctor. He knows. I only knows what folks say, and that's mostly lies as often as not. Yore dinner's all ready. Yo' go and see t' doctor after supper and ax him all about it." After dinner he took a ramble round his new parish. He had arrived a couple of days sooner than expected and the head shepherd was away from home, so he had had to find his way about alone and make the acquaintance of his sheep as best he could. Mrs. Jex, who had also acted as landlady for the departed Smythe, had already thanked God for the change. For Smythe, a lank, boneless creature, who cloaked a woeful lack of zeal for humanity under cover of an unwrinkling robe of high observance, had found the atmosphere of Wyvveloe uncongenial. It lacked the feminine palliatives to which he had been accustomed. He had grown fretful and irritable--"a perfec' whimsy!" as Mrs. Jex put it. The sturdy fisher-farmer folk laughed him and his ways to scorn, and the whole parish was beginning to run to seed when, to the relief of all concerned, he succeeded in obtaining his transfer to a sphere better suited to his peculiar requirements. Mrs. Jex had had experience of Mr. Eager for one night and half a day, and she already breathed peacefully, and had thanked God for the change. And it was the same in every cottage into which the Rev. Charles put his lean, smiling face that day.