"It's really most extraordinary!" she declared, scrutinising Ann much as though she suspected her of having somehow juggled matters in order to produce such a phenomenon. "Did you hear that, Brian? Miss Lovell has been living with our dear Lady Susan." She spoke as if she held proprietary rights in Lady Susan. "Isn't it extraordinary that now she and her brother should have come to live so near White Windows?" "I think it's a very charming happening," replied the rector, "since Oldstone Cottage is even nearer to the rectory!" He smiled across at Ann--a quick, sympathetic smile that seemed to establish them on a footing of friendly intimacy at once. "Really," went on Miss Caroline, doggedly pursuing the line of thought to the bitter end of her commonplace mind, "it's as though it were _meant_ in some way--that you should come to Silverquay." "Probably it was," returned the rector simply, and Ann observed a quiet, dreaming expression come into his eyes--a look of inner vision, tranquilly content and confident. "Fancy if it turns out like that!" exclaimed Miss Caroline. "It would be a most singular thing, wouldn't it, if it was really _intended_?" "Not at all," answered Brian composedly. "You're speaking as though you regarded the Almighty as a thoughtless kind of person who would let things happen, just anyhow." "Brian!" Miss Caroline's tones shuddered with shocked reproach. Her brother often shocked her; he seemed to think of God as simply and naturally as he might of any other friend. She herself, in the course of her parochial work in the village, habitually represented Him as a somewhat prying and easily offended individual who kept a particularly sharp eye on the inhabitants of Silverquay. She hastily turned the conversation on to less debatable ground. "We shall have quite a lot of fresh people in the neighbourhood," she remarked sociably. "Mr. Coventry himself is a stranger to us all, and then there will be a new-comer at the Priory, too." "Mrs. Hilyard, you mean?" said Robin. "Yes." Miss Caroline looked full of importance. "I hear she arrives to-day. The carrier told our cook that he was ordered to meet the four-thirty train this afternoon--to fetch a quantity of luggage." "Is there a _Mr._ Hilyard?" asked Ann casually. She could see that Miss Caroline was bursting with gossipy news which she was aching to impart. "No, she's a widow, I hear, and very wealthy. The furniture that's been coming down by rail is of most excellent quality--most excellent!" "How do you know, Caroline?" inquired the rector, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Well, _entirely_ by accident, I happened to be taking a basin of chicken broth to old Mrs. Skinner--you know, she lives in one of the Priory cottages--on the very day the pantechnicons were delivering at the house, and I saw quite a number of the chairs and tables as they were being carried in." The twinkle in Brian's eyes grew more pronounced.