MR. WRIGHT made sure, with a quick look, that the shop door leading back to the parlour, was closed. Then he leant across the counter to Ursula, and in low confidential tones, scornfully tolerant, enlightened her as to the true character of St. Miniot, its inhabitants and its history. Mr. Wright kept the general shop which was not also the post office, in opposition to Mr. Sampson’s general shop--which was. Mr. Wright was not a native of the place; he was indeed a very superior man, preoccupied with care lest a stranger, such as Ursula, should not take note of this superiority within the first five minutes’ intercourse. He had a short pointed beard and wise eyes; he spoke consciously good English; he had once kept a store in Sydney, and he behaved entirely as though life were a delicate mission entrusted to him by a celestial Diplomatic Service, who had selected him for his special gifts of tact, suavity and discretion. He was a materialist and an agnostic--so he informed Ursula; but she, who was quick to recognize little boys at their games, knew him at once for a romantic who could only make existence bearable by such pretences as: “I _think_ if you’ll give me time I can put that through for you, Mrs. Barrison,” when she asked for a pound of castor sugar, “but you’ll understand, I know, that I’ve good reason for asking you to keep the matter quiet. There are some people here”--with a significant nod at the door--“who’d do neither of us any good if it came round to them. And I needn’t tell _you_ that in a little place like this things _do_ get round in an astonishing way. I mention no names, mind you”--bending still further forward until his beard almost touched Ursula’s chin--“but I heard only yesterday that you were thinking of entering into negotiations for a house down here. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say I know of one that might suit you--it’s best not to commit oneself in a place like this”--a shrug of the shoulders and a short embittered laugh every time he mentioned “the folks down here” or “a place like this”--“but there’d be no harm in my asking you if you had happened to notice--_and_ a ball of string, Mrs. Barrison? Thank you very much, I’ll send it along with the other parcels.” The sudden swerve into ordinary professional tones was for the hoodwinking of a small child who came in for some washing soda. “Now then, Lizzie, what is it? Oh, all right. Run along home, now, your mother’ll be wanting this in a hurry.” The bell clanged behind Lizzie ... and the low diplomatic tones were resumed: “Those children, they gossip worse than their parents, sometimes, and _that’s_ saying a good deal, in a place like this. Lizzie’s dumb, poor little soul, but still, it’s best to be on the safe side, and her grandmother on her father’s side, Mrs. Arthur Endellion, that would be--is related to Mr. Wenn that I was just going to tell you about. A sister, in fact.” “But I thought Lizzie was the old postman’s granddaughter.”