"God forbid!" ejaculated Prudence, and thereby brought a storm of horrified reproach upon her head. On occasions Matilda arrived and spent an afternoon or morning with her, such an altered Matilda that she appeared to Prudence in the guise of a stranger. Matilda had emerged since her marriage, and from being a mild reflection of her eldest sister, reflected now Mr Jones quite brightly and unconsciously. She echoed him in a feminine note, and quoted him with unintentional inaccuracy, but with sufficient likeness to recall the original with unpleasant vividness to Prudence's mind. Usually Mr Jones was too busy to accompany her. "The vicar leaves so much to him," Mrs Jones explained. "Ernest hopes to move from Wortheton shortly." "I understood that he was greatly attached to his work here," Prudence said. "He likes the factory and the people." "He has hopes of a living," Matilda confided, lowering her voice. "Oh, a living! That's another matter. You'll be quite important." Matilda looked a little doubtful. "It's a very poor living," she confessed, "even if he succeeds in obtaining it. No clergyman without private means could accept it." "I see." Prudence did see, very clearly. She smiled suddenly. "How grateful he must feel to you," she added. Matilda resented this very much in the manner Prudence decided in which Mr Jones would have resented it. "That matters only in regard to this particular living," she said. "Ernest would succeed in any case; he is so clever." Prudence's accident, with the unfortunate complication which had effected Major Stotford's entry upon the scene, was used by Agatha, backed by brother William, as a sufficient reason against future cycling. Agatha went to an immense amount of trouble in her efforts to gain her father's veto against Prudence riding again. She persuaded him to get rid of the bicycle as the surest means of avoiding fresh misadventures; and rendered him so nervous with her gloomy forebodings that he did consent to part with the bicycle; but he reserved his veto against riding until he saw how Prudence viewed a possible prohibition. He could not deny her pleasure merely because the idea of her riding made him nervous. Bobby had met with accidents when he first cycled; but it never had been suggested that Bobby should give up riding from a fear he might break his neck. The damaged cycle was disposed of; William saw to that. Agatha undertook to inform her sister; she also sought to prevail with her to give up the exercise. She enlarged upon her father's anxiety, so injurious in the case of a man of his years, and pointed out to Prudence that duty demanded this sacrifice of her pleasure to his anxious love. Prudence heard her out in silence, a stony silence which betrayed nothing of the rage that burned within her breast. With the finish of the oration her chin tilted aggressively. "This is your doing," she said.