“I can’t think how they ever considered her for a moment!...” Mrs. James thrust her head above water, so to speak, and then eagerly plunged it back. The feet shuffled in the road, and the heads whispered and bobbed, with every second that passed getting further from the truth. Martha Jane, pulling up at the back the skirt that instantly slipped down, and down at the front the blouse that instantly slipped up, came out of her door and stood watching them with a sardonic grin. “Talking about me, I’ll lay!” she observed to herself, half bitter, half amused. She had seen too many heads close together in her vicinity not to know when it meant scandal about herself. Often enough some of it happened to get round to her again, and there were times when she had a malicious joy in speeding it on its way. “I’ve heard that much about myself and my goings-on,” she remarked once, “that I don’t know by now which is gospel and which ain’t! Anyway, it wouldn’t be safe for me to swear it on t’ Book, I know that! I reckon I’ll be as surprised as anybody when t’ Judgment Day comes round!” Suddenly turning her glance up street instead of down, she beheld Emma Catterall’s furtive gaze sliding away from her like a half-felt hand, afterwards focussing itself on the gossiping group. “Wonder what she’s gaping at _me_ for?” she said to herself, rather uncomfortably, and then winked and grinned. “The Queen _and_ her ladies-in-waiting!” she remarked with a jerk of her head towards the little throng. “Ann Clapham’s mighty sure things is going to be O.K. Seems to think she’ll simply romp home over yon house!” Emma Catterall made no attempt to reply to this effort of wit; did not, indeed, look as if she had even heard it. She merely began to dissolve into thin air, and disappeared even as Martha stared. The latter, however, was used to this vanishing trick on the part of her neighbour, and only laughed. But she, too, was hungering for an exchange of words with somebody, feeling, as Mrs. Clapham had felt earlier in the morning, that even Emma was better than nothing. She waited a while, therefore, hoping that she might reappear, and then, as she gave no further impression of life, took her courage in her hands, and sidled cringingly down the street.