Priscilla was standing by the fire dressed to go out, waiting for Fritzing, and she stared at this apparition in great and unconcealed surprise.  What business, said Priscilla’s look more plainly than any words, what business had people to walk into other people’s cottages in such a manner?  She stood quite still, and scrutinized Mrs. Morrison with the questioning expression she used to find so effective in Kunitz days when confronted by a person inclined to forget which, exactly, was his proper place.  But Mrs. Morrison knew nothing of Kunitz, and the look lost half its potency without its impressive background.  Besides, the lady was not one to notice things so slight as looks; to keep her in her proper place you would have needed sledge-hammers.  She came in without thinking it necessary to wait to be asked to, nodded something that might perhaps have represented a greeting and of which Priscilla took no notice, and her face was the face of somebody who is angry.

“How wearing for the vicar,” thought Priscilla, “to have a wife who is angry at ten o’clock in the morning.”

“I’ve come in the interests—­” began Mrs. Morrison, whose voice was quite as angry as her face.

“I’m just going out,” said Priscilla.

“—­Of religion and morality.”

“Are they distinct?” asked Priscilla, drawing on her gloves.

“You can imagine that nothing would make me pay you a visit but the strongest sense of the duty I owe to my position in the parish.”

“Why should I imagine it?”

“Of course I expect impertinence.”

“I’m afraid you’ve come here to be rude.”

“I shall not be daunted by anything you may say from doing my duty.”

“Will you please do it, then, and get it over?”

“The duties of a clergyman’s wife are often very disagreeable.”

“Probably you’ve got hold of a perfectly wrong idea of what yours really are.”

“It is a new experience for me to be told so by a girl of your age.”

“I am not telling you.  I only suggest.”

“I was prepared for rudeness.”

“Then why did you come?”

“How long are you going to stay in this parish?”

“You don’t expect me to answer that?”

“You’ve not been in it a fortnight, and you have done more harm than most people in a lifetime.”

“I’m afraid you exaggerate.”

“You have taught it to drink.”

“I gave a dying old woman what she most longed for.”

“You’ve taught it to break the Sabbath.”

“I made a great many little children very happy.”

“You have ruined the habits of thrift we have been at such pains to teach and encourage for twenty-five years.”

“I helped the poor when they asked me to.”

“And now what I want to know is, what has become of the Hancock girl?”

“Pray who, exactly, is the Hancock girl?”

“That unfortunate creature who worked here for you on Wednesday.”