INTRODUCING MRS. MUCKLOW Susan Yellam rarely left her cottage, and, during week-days, was not too cordial to chance visitors. On Sunday afternoon, however, she was at home to friends, and hospitably glad to offer them the best cup of tea in Nether-Applewhite, and some hot buttered toast which waited for nobody. If a too nice stomach disdained buttered toast, the pangs of hunger could be alleviated with bread and honey (from the hives in the garden) or bread and jam (of Mrs. Yellam's own making). A rich cake was in cut. Mrs. Yellam had been a Mucklow. And her favourite brother, Habakkuk, had married a Rockley--all of Nether-Applewhite. Mrs. Mucklow generally dropped in on Sunday afternoons, bringing a grievance with her. The Mucklows had not prospered like the Yellams and Rockleys. And this was the more remarkable because the Mucklow men were fine upstanding fellows, reasonably sober, and God-fearing Churchgoers. The ancients of the village affirmed that the brains of the family had been served out in one lump, and given to Susan Yellam. Upon the Sunday following Alfred's visit to the Vicarage, Mrs. Mucklow, wearing black silk and a bonnet, dropped into the cottage. She was taller than her sister-in-law, and very thin. Invariably she disagreed with everything said by Mrs. Yellam, and yet, oddly enough, the two women remained friends, partly because Susan believed devoutly in the ties of blood, and partly because Jane's rather fatuous contradictions shed searchlights upon Susan's commonsense. Wisdom is comfortably bolstered by the folly of others. "Well, Jane, how be you?" Mrs. Mucklow answered dolorously: "I be no better than I was las' Sunday." "That's bad." "No, it ain't. I expected to be worse. Very soon I shall be lying along o' Mother. She suffered wi' her innards, pore soul, just as I do." "She got comfort out of it, too, just as you do, dear. Sit you down, and let's hear the news." Jane Mucklow sighed, and sat down. Unlike her sister-in-law, she strayed daily into the cottages of her neighbours, picking up gossip, and repeating it with embellishments of her own. As she removed white cotton gloves, she said sharply: "I want your news first, Susan." "But I haven't any, Jane; nothing, that is to say, which you don't well know already." "Maybe. But I wanted it from your own lips." "Bless the woman! Whatever do 'ee want?" "What you prides yourself on giving--information. Don't sit there so genteel, and pretend to me that you don't know what your Alferd be up to this very minute!" "I don't--and nor do you." "Yas, I do. Your Alferd was over to Vicarage las' Sunday. To-day, he's traipsin' the Park with Miss Fancy Broomfield."