"I'm afraid you must have stood and watched the unloading process, then." "Well, I suppose I did--just for a minute," she acknowledged, adding with some asperity: "It would be quite fitting if you took a little keener interest in future parishioners, Brian." "My interest in my future parishioners is quite keen, I assure you--though I don't know that it extends to their furniture," replied the rector, laughing. "Oh, well, it's nice to know that some one has taken the Priory who is in a position to keep it up properly," persisted his sister. "Don't you agree, Miss Lovell?" "Of course," said Ann. "Besides"--smiling across at the rector--"as we're as poor as church mice, it's just as well the new arrival at the Priory should he rich--to even things up." "I think it's all very interesting," pursued Miss Caroline, still intent on her own train of thought. "Here's Mr. Coventry come home at last to live at Heronsmere--a very eligible bachelor--and with this Mrs. Hilyard, a wealthy widow, living so near by it wouldn't be at all surprising if something came of it." The rector jumped up, laughing good-humouredly. "Caroline! Caroline! I must really take you home after that, or Miss Lovell will think Silverquay is a veritable hot-bed of gossip. Coventry hasn't been in the neighbourhood a month, poor man, and here you are trying to tie him up with a lady who doesn't even arrive until this afternoon!" "Besides," suggested Robin, smiling broadly, "she may be a really disconsolate widow, you know." Miss Caroline shook her head. "I don't think so," she answered obstinately. "The furniture didn't look like it. One of the packages was a little torn, and I caught sight of the curtains inside. They were rose colour." "That was really quite bright of Miss Caroline," observed Ann with some amusement, when the rector and his sister had started for home. "Only she didn't know it!" CHAPTER X A DISCOVERY The morning breeze darted in and out of Ann's bedroom like a child tentatively trying to inveigle a grown-up person into playing hide-and-seek. With every puff a big cluster of roses, which had climbed to the sill, swayed forward and peeped inside, sending a whiff of delicate perfume across to where Ann was kneeling, surrounded by trunks and suitcases, unpacking her belongings. Pleasant little sounds of life floated up from outdoors--the clucking of a hen, the stamping of the bay cob as Billy Brewster groomed him, whistling softly through his teeth while he brushed and curry-combed, the occasional honk of a motor-horn as a car sped by in the distance. Then came the beat of a horse's hoofs, stopping abruptly outside the cottage gate.