Thanks in a great measure to Mr Robert's policy, the news of Anthony's clearing spread rapidly through the neighbourhood. The Milmans had a luncheon party about a week afterwards, and as Lady Milman said to her daughter beforehand, it was really quite a comfort to have something to talk about. She contrived, very skilfully, to keep the welcome topic out of the desultory conversation before luncheon, feeling that it was too valuable to be broken into fragments, as would then have been its fate. But in the first pause after they were seated in the dining-room, Mrs Featherly's voice was heard emphatically declaring,-- "A very strange and unsatisfactory story this, about Anthony Miles. Not that I ever expected the matter to be cleared up in the manner one has a right to desire, but with his father vicar and all, I often told Mr Featherly that I should make a point of hoping against hope." "Well, I don't know about its being unsatisfactory," said Lady Milman, looking very handsome, and inclined to take a kindlier view of things. "It's odd, of course, and unlucky that we can't hear the whole affair, but so long as he did not receive the letter it is really no difference who did. I always liked Anthony Miles, and I think his jumping into the water and saving the man who had done him so much harm was a very fine thing." "O, but it was in the dark, so he could not possibly have known. I can tell you precisely how it all occurred," said Mrs Featherly, who would have scorned to have been unable to give a precise account of anything which happened within a circuit of ten miles. "He had that minute left the Bennetts', and heard a scream and a splash, and saw some one in the water, so of course he could do nothing less than jump in. There were the steps close by, and there was no possible danger." "Ah, it's a capital thing to be able to economise one's neighbours' virtues," said old Mr Wood of the Grange, helping himself to mayonnaise. "Well, if Anthony Miles knew who it was," said Mrs Featherly, tartly, "he showed a very proper spirit, a dissenter and all. Dissenters are never to be trusted, and this one behaved in a most reprehensible manner, going about in my husband's parish and making himself exceedingly troublesome,--though I should be the last person to speak ill of the dead." "It is unsatisfactory, as you say, because they can't feel it," put in Mr Wood again, in a tone of assent, which Mrs Featherly accepted as a tribute to her argument. "I have no doubt that it is all true so far as that David Stephens acted very wrongly," she continued, "but then I do feel that if one hears part one should hear all. I should like to know, if Anthony Miles did not get the letter, who did?" Mr Mannering had already laid down his knife and fork, and joined the tips of his fingers together, divided between a desire to speak and a fear of impoliteness.