“Is your uncle out?” she asked, some of the sharpness of her thoughts getting into her voice.

“He’s gone to Minehead, to see about things for my cottage.”

“Your cottage?  Have you got Mrs. Shaw’s, then?”

“Yes.  She is being moved out to-day.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Morrison, greatly struck.

“Is it surprising?”

“Most.  So unlike Lady Shuttleworth.”

“She has been very kind.”

“Do you know her?”

“No; but my uncle was there this morning.”

“And managed to persuade her?”

“He is very eloquent,” said Priscilla, with a demure downward sweep of her eyelashes.

“Just a little more,” thought Mrs. Morrison, watching their dusky golden curve, “and the girl would have had scarlet hair and white-eyebrows and masses of freckles and been frightful.”  And she sighed an impatient sigh, which, if translated into verse, would undoubtedly have come out—­

     “Oh the little more and how much it is,
      And the little less and what worlds away!”

“And poor old Mrs. Shaw—­how does she like being turned out?”

“I believe she is being put into something that will seem to her a palace.”

“Dear me, your uncle must really be very eloquent.”

“I assure you that he is,” said Priscilla earnestly.

There was a short pause, during which Mrs. Morrison staring straight into those unfathomable pools, Priscilla’s eyes, was very angry with them for being so evidently lovely.  “You are very young,” she said, “so you will not mind my questions—­”

“Don’t the young mind questions?” asked Priscilla, for a moment supposing it to be a characteristic of the young of England.

“Not, surely, from experienced and—­and married ladies,” said Mrs. Morrison tartly.

“Please go on then.”

“Oh, I haven’t anything particular to go on about,” said Mrs. Morrison, offended.  “I assure you curiosity is not one of my faults.”

“No?” said Priscilla, whose attention had begun to wander.

“Being human I have no doubt many failings, but I’m thankful to say curiosity isn’t one of them.”

“My uncle says that’s just the difference between men and women.  He says women might achieve just as much as men if only they were curious about things.  But they’re not.  A man will ask a thousand questions, and never rest till he’s found out as much as he can about anything he sees, and a woman is content hardly even to see it.”

“I hope your uncle is a Churchman,” was Mrs. Morrison’s unexpected reply.

Priscilla’s mind could not leap like this, and she hesitated a moment and smiled. ("It’s the first time she’s looked pleasant,” thought Mrs. Morrison, “and now it’s in the wrong place.”)

“He was born, of course, in the Lutheran faith,” said Priscilla.

“Oh, a horrid faith.  Excuse me, but it really is.  I hope he isn’t going to upset Symford?”