The vicar introduced us sketchily, and the faded Victorian wife regarded my aunt with a mixture of conventional scorn and abject respect, and talked to her in a languid, persistent voice about people in the neighbourhood whom my aunt could not possibly know. My aunt received these personalia cheerfully, with her blue eyes flitting from point to point, and coming back again and again to the pinched faces of the daughters and the cross upon the eldest’s breast. Encouraged by my aunt’s manner, the vicar’s wife grew patronising and kindly, and made it evident that she could do much to bridge the social gulf between ourselves and the people of family about us. I had just snatches of that conversation. “Mrs. Merridew brought him quite a lot of money. Her father, I believe, had been in the Spanish wine trade—quite a lady though. And after that he fell off his horse and cracked his brain pan and took to fishing and farming. I’m sure you’ll like to know them. He’s _most_ amusing.... The daughter had a disappointment and went to China as a missionary and got mixed up in a massacre.”... “The most beautiful silks and things she brought back, you’d hardly believe!” “Yes, they gave them to propitiate her. You see, they didn’t understand the difference, and they thought that as they’d been massacring people, _they’d_ be massacred. They didn’t understand the difference Christianity makes.”... “Seven bishops they’ve had in the family!” “Married a Papist and was quite lost to them.”... “He failed some dreadful examination and had to go into the militia.”... “So she bit his leg as hard as ever she could and he let go.”... “Had four of his ribs amputated.”... “Caught meningitis and was carried off in a week.” “Had to have a large piece of silver tube let into his throat, and if he wants to talk he puts his finger on it. It makes him so interesting, I think. You feel he’s sincere somehow. A most charming man in every way.” “Preserved them both in spirits very luckily, and there they are in his study, though of course he doesn’t show them to everybody.” The silent lady, unperturbed by these apparently exciting topics, scrutinised my aunt’s costume with a singular intensity, and was visibly moved when she unbuttoned her dust cloak and flung it wide. Meanwhile we men conversed, one of the more spirited daughters listened brightly, and the youths lay on the grass at our feet. My uncle offered them cigars, but they both declined,—out of bashfulness, it seemed to me, whereas the vicar, I think, accepted out of tact. When we were not looking at them directly, these young men would kick each other furtively. Under the influence of my uncle’s cigar, the vicar’s mind had soared beyond the limits of the district. “This Socialism,” he said, “seems making great headway.” My uncle shook his head. “We’re too individualistic in this country for that sort of nonsense,” he said “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business. That’s where they go wrong.”