This commendation loosened Alfred's tongue, as was intended. Very leisurely, between immense mouthfuls of bread and cheese, he told an artless tale. Fancy, it appeared, was the youngest daughter of a small farrier in Salisbury, and the first of three daughters to take service. Her father enjoyed poor health. At this Mrs. Yellam sniffed. She held strong opinions, like the Squire, upon eugenics. If put to it, she might have admitted that ill-health was apportioned by Providence to the less deserving. Dissenters, in her experience, suffered more from mysterious ailments than Church-people. Draughty, jerry-built Chapels were handicraft of Satan. Alfred continued. Fancy had chosen a country place, because she was none too robust. "Peaky and spindlin'," remarked Mrs. Yellam. "Is her mother alive?" "The pore soul gave up the ghost when Fancy was born." "That's very bad, Alferd." Alfred, no pessimist, answered cheerfully: "Might have been worse, Mother." "Eh?" Alfred grinned. "She might have died before Fancy was born, and then there'd be one pretty maid the less in Nether-Applewhite to-day." "Gracious! She do seem to find favour with 'ee. 'Tis wicked to wager money on't, but I'll lay a pound o' good butter, Alferd, that you disremember Mr. Hamlin's text this marning." "You'd win that bet, Mother. I'm bothered and moithered to death." "About this white-faced maid, Alferd?" "About my old van. About the horses, too. I'm far-seeing, Mother. Get that from you, I reckon. Yesterday, in Salisbury, I did take upon myself the very hateful job of looking at a motor-'bus." Mrs. Yellam sighed. Fancy flew out of her capacious mind. "What be us coming to, Alferd!" "I don't know. But I'm always one to make a guess. My son, maybe, 'll be a carrier, like his father and granfer before him; likely as not he'll want to sell the motor-'bus and buy a flying-machine. We all march on and on." "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Mrs. Yellam gazed mournfully at her son. As a Christian soldier she believed devoutly in "marching on," but such marching implied a leisurely procession, not excess speed. She hated motors, because they rushed by, covering the foot-passengers with dust or mud according to the season. She had, too, an inchoate aversion to all machinery, because it minimised and mocked at human labour, which she respected inordinately. Machinery had driven able-bodied men overseas to return no more. She had seen certain cunning handicrafts wither and die. For instance, how many thatchers were left? Machinery, so she believed, had raised the cost of living; machinery--the ubiquitous locomotive--linked together disastrously town and country, filling the minds of maids with what she called "flummery" and covering their bodies with cheap finery. Machinery, had you probed her heart to its depths, manufactured free thought, and everything else that lured God-fearing persons from the old ways. It was, indeed, hateful to think of her Alfred driving a motor-'bus.