He did not take any notice of her remark. “So is Jane Anne!” she next observed. “Jane Anne is a very clever girl,” replied Rivers, too single-minded and too busy to see the construction that might be put on the turn of his phrase. “She may be a mute inglorious Milton!” remarked Mrs. Elles, “but I am sure she is not a nice nature. She looks a potential murderess with those lowering brows. As for Mrs. Popham, I don’t know her.” “Ah, but you will!” “I hope sincerely I shall not,” Mrs. Elles muttered, under her breath. Mrs. Popham might be a noble soul, and a very fair water-colour artist, but still a woman with surely an enquiring mind and a scent for irregular situations. She began to dread the Pophams and Jane Anne, and to regard them as natural enemies. Jane Anne she could not avoid meeting about the house, and the girl was so antipathetic to her that she made a point of not encountering her eyes, and did this so obviously as to provoke an enmity which, possibly, had so far only existed in her own imagination. The vicar and his wife, whether by accident or design, never crossed her path. One day, when she made her accustomed pilgrimage to Brignal, she saw that Rivers was not alone, and, at first, thought it was the sacerdotal back that blotted the fair landscape. But it was not Mr. Popham’s; it was that of the opulent farmer on whose land Rivers had taken up his position, and with whom the dispute of the pig’s unlawful consumption of Naples yellow had long been arranged amicably. Farmer Ward was standing by the side of the artist, passing his felt wide-awake from one hand to the other and staring up into the sky as if he expected the first rain-drop of the autumn to fall on his expectant features from moment to moment. “No, it won’t rain to-day,” Rivers was saying, decidedly, “but you had better make the most of the opportunity, for I won’t vouch for this spell of weather lasting.” “Aal reet, Measter, I’ll take yer word for’t.... Ye see, Miss,” he turned to the young woman who now approached, “artisses and sech like, they seem to know the meanin’ of it all!--” he waved his hand comprehensively round the horizon,--“a deal better nor we do.” “We are bound to notice it,” said Rivers, indulgently. “You see, the weather affects our crops, too!” He pointed to his canvas. “Ha! Ha! Measter, I takes ye! And if I might be so bold as to ask, what might ye happen to get for that little pectewer there? A matter o’ fifteen shillin’--or saxteen, maybe.” “My good man, how do you think I could possibly live at that rate? I have been at this thing a month already!” “Ay, ay, Measter, but then, some folks is pertickler slow!” “There’s a snub for me!” whispered Rivers to Mrs. Elles.