Luckily the vicar, with whom the events of that Sunday had grown into a comic myth that was continually being added to, was able to give Sylvia relief from Philip's exaggerated disapproval. Moreover, the Treacherites had done him a service by advertising his church and bringing a certain number of strangers there every Sunday out of curiosity; these pilgrims inflated the natives of Green Lanes with a sense of their own importance, and they now filled the church, taking pride and pleasure in the ownership of an attraction and boasting to the natives of the villages round about the size of the offertory. Mr. Dorward's popery and ritualism were admired now as commercial smartness, and if he had chosen to ride into church on Palm Sunday or any other Sunday on a donkey (a legendary ceremony invariably attributed to High Church vicars), there was not a man, woman, or child in the parish of Green Lanes that would not have given a prod of encouragement to the sacred animal. One hot September afternoon Sylvia was walking back from Medworth when she was overtaken by Mr. Pluepott in his cart. They stopped to exchange the usual country greetings, at which by now Sylvia was an adept. When presently Mr. Pluepott invited her to take advantage of a lift home she climbed up beside him. For a while they jogged along in silence; suddenly Mr. Pluepott delivered himself of what was evidently much upon his mind: "Mrs. Iredale," he began, "you and me has known each other the best part of two years, and your coming and having a cup of tea with Mrs. Pluepott once or twice and Mrs. Pluepott having a big opinion of you makes me so bold." He paused and reined in his pony to a walk that would suit the gravity of his communication. "I'd like to give you a bit of a warning as from a friend and, with all due respect, an admirer. Being a married man myself and you a young lady, you won't go for to mistake my meaning when I says to you right out that women is worse than the devil. Miss Horne! As I jokingly said to Mrs. Pluepott, though, being a sacred subject, she wouldn't laugh, 'Miss Horne!' I said. 'Miss Horns! That's what she ought to be called.' Mrs. Iredale," he went on, pulling up the pony to a dead, stop and turning round with a very serious countenance to Sylvia--"Mrs. Iredale, you've got a wicked, bad enemy in that old woman." "I know," she agreed. "We quarreled over something." "If you quarreled, and whether it was your fault or whether it was hers, isn't nothing to do with me, but the lies she's spreading around about you and the Reverend Dorward beat the band. I'm not speaking gossip. I'm not going by hearsay. I've heard her myself, and Miss Hobart's as bad, if not worse. There, now I've told you and I hope you'll pardon the liberty, but I couldn't help it." With which Mr. Pluepott whipped up his pony to a frantic gallop, and very soon they reached the outskirts of Green Lanes, where Sylvia got down.