“My dear mother, I’m never sure of anything.  Nor are you.  Nor is Miss Schultz.  Nor is anybody who is really intelligent.  But I found the thing, and Mr. Neumann—­”

“The name to-day is Neumann-Schultz,” said Mrs. Morrison, in a voice heavy with implications.

“Mr. Neumann-Schultz, then, had been that way just before, and so I felt somehow it must be his.”

“Your Uncle Cox had one just like it when he stayed with us last time,” remarked Mrs. Morrison.

“Had he?  I say, mater, what an eye you must have for an umbrella.  That must be five years ago.”

“Oh, he left it behind, and I see it in the stand every time I go through the hall.”

“No!  Do you?” said Robin, who was hurled by this statement into the corner where his wits ended and where he probably would have stayed ignominiously, for Miss Schultz seemed hardly to be listening and really almost looked—­he couldn’t believe it, no girl had ever done it in his presence yet, but she did undoubtedly almost look—­bored, if Mrs. Pearce had not flung open the door, and holding the torn portions of her apron bunched together in her hands, nervously announced Lady Shuttleworth.

“Oh,” thought Priscilla, “what a day I’m having.”  But she got up and was gracious, for Fritzing had praised this lady as kind and sensible; and the moment Lady Shuttleworth set her eyes on her the mystery of her son’s behaviour flashed into clearness.  “Tussie’s seen her!” she exclaimed inwardly; instantly adding “Upon my word I can’t blame the boy.”

“My dear,” she said, holding Priscilla’s hand, “I’ve come to make friends with you.  See what a wise old woman I am.  Frankly, I didn’t want you in those cottages, but now that my son has sold them I lose no time in making friends.  Isn’t that true wisdom?”

“It’s true niceness,” said Priscilla, smiling down at the little old lady whose eyes were twinkling all over her.  “I don’t think you’ll find us in any way a nuisance.  All we want is to be quiet.”

Mrs. Morrison sniffed.

“Do you really?” said Lady Shuttleworth.  “Then we shall get on capitally.  It’s what I like best myself.  And you’ve come too,” she went on, turning to Mrs. Morrison, “to make friends with your new parishioner?  Why, Robin, and you too?”

“Oh, I’m only accidental,” said Robin quickly.  “Only a restorer of lost property.  And I’m just going,” he added, beginning to make hasty adieux; for Lady Shuttleworth invariably produced a conviction in him that his clothes didn’t fit and wanted brushing badly, and no young man so attentive to his appearance as Robin could be expected to enjoy that.  He fled therefore, feeling that even Miss Schultz’s loveliness would not make up for Lady Shuttleworth’s eyes; and in the passage, from whence Mrs. Pearce had retreated, removing herself as far as might be from the awful lady to whom her father-in-law owed rent and who saw every hole, Robin pounced on his Uncle Cox’s umbrella, tucked is once more beneath his arm, and bore it swiftly back to the stand where it had spent five peaceful years.  “Really old women are rather terrible things,” he thought as he dropped it in again.  “I wonder what they’re here for.”