URSULA went forth from beleaguerment to a sale in the neighbourhood of Polpinnock. With her last remnants of idealism, she hoped to be able to bid successfully for “good” pieces of old furniture for Grey Stone, against an innocent throng unaware of their value. The ruined family were as usual impulsive “foreigners” who had settled down four years earlier, hoping to prosper body and soul, at the expense of the unsophisticated natives ... who mysteriously, never came to grief in the same inevitable fashion, but were always able to crowd to the sales and make profitable purchases for their own homes speculating the while with stolid excitement on the exact disasters which has led to the hammer’s triple fall. Wenn was there, bearing himself like a man who can see through the auctioneer’s humbug, and calculate the worth of things for himself. If his vulture eye happened to see some old flowerpots, beansticks or potato-peelings going cheap, he might bargain for them, but he warned Ursula against throwing away good money: “You’ve got dealers running up prices against ee all the time. There’s several of ’em here talking about roots and barley to make believe they’re farmers from up-along. Look, Mrs. Barrison, there’s something I want to tell ee if you’ll step with me where tes quiet!” They pushed their way through the groups in the trampled yard and garden with its forlorn furniture piled up in lots; and in a corner of the field where the auctioneer’s monotonously jocund voice only reached them faintly, Wenn announced that he had bought the remainder of Abbott’s seven-year lease of Parc Gooth, and had already found a good tenant, an American who was staying at his hotel, and wished to be shown over the house very shortly. “But....” Ursula stopped short, in desperate perplexity. Wenn was their landlord at Grey Stone ... supposing she offended him, and the well went wrong, and he refused to send down Henry, his middle son (because it was too dangerous a job on which to risk a hired man). Supposing.... Yes, but that wire from Miss Gregson ... and the Allingham-Joneses, backed up by Tody, calling nearly every day....