Meanwhile, Seth Miller had driven out to the bridge and waited, talking the while to the Phelps horse which, like most of the horses in the village, was a great pet and like one of the family. Presently he caught a flash of red among the pines on the hill, saw his daughter waving to him, and drove on until he saw her waiting at the lower gate of the cemetery with the baby and a strange, foreign-looking woman whom he took to be a gypsy who had probably been carrying the baby away when Anna caught her. Again and again that night at home he exclaimed over his surprise to think that the old and faded woman with the piercing black eyes who might have been a gypsy crone was none other than the handsome Mr. Langley’s wife. And yet he granted she was pleasant-spoken and the baby seemed to take to her amazingly and he only hoped she wasn’t out of her head. Anna got out with Mrs. Langley at the parsonage and asked her father to bring the baby in. Seth Miller held the baby close, whispering to him and lengthening the inconsiderable distance by crawling along, the while Anna explained that she would have to go in for a little and asked him to stop at Miss Penny’s with the news and have someone come for her with the pony later. “And pa, if you see Mr. Langley, send him home right away,” she added eagerly. “Or--if you happen to hear where he is, do go get him and bring him home.” * * * * * Seth Miller did not meet Mr. Langley, however, nor could he learn where he was except that he wasn’t in the Hollow. As a matter of fact Mr. Langley was engaged in an affair of some moment. He had left the parsonage early in the afternoon. Directly after dinner, an informal, self-constituted committee of three men living in the Farleigh end of the village had waited on the minister in his study. Though not taken wholly by surprise, he had been shocked and distressed by the nature of their errand, even while he could not but feel, as he assured them, that they acted within their rights. He would have persuaded them to wait until after Christmas, but he could not insist upon it. And he was grateful to them for coming to him and allowing him to forestall their action so that it should be less shockingly abrupt to those who must suffer thereby. Hastening from the parsonage, he met Rusty and Anna Miller in the phaeton driving the fat pony. As he had already seen Rusty, he only greeted them in passing. And realising at once that they were on their way to Wenham to meet Reuben, he was thankful to have them out of the way for a good measure of time. His business was with Alice Lorraine, and the fewer people he saw besides the girl herself, the quicker might he dispatch it. Unhappily, he did not find Alice at home. He looked so concerned when Miss Penny told him that the girl had gone away for the afternoon that Mrs. Lorraine was startled. “Is it something serious, Mr. Langley?” she asked.