Into this innocent, frugal, well-managed hamlet Priscilla dropped suddenly from nowhere, trailing with her thunder-clouds of impulsive and childish ideas about doing good, and holding in her hands the dangerous weapon of wealth.  It is hard to stand by and see one’s life-work broken up before one’s eyes by an irresponsible stranger, a foreigner, a girl, a young girl, a pretty girl; especially hard if one was born with an unbending character, tough and determined, ambitious and vain.  These are not reproaches being piled up on the vicar’s wife; who shall dare reproach another?  And how could she help being born so?  We would all if we could be born good and amiable and beautiful, and remain so perpetually during our lives; and she too was one of God’s children, and inside her soul, behind the crust of failings that hindered it during these years from coming out, sat her bright angel, waiting.  Meanwhile she was not a person to watch the destruction of her hopes without making violent efforts to stop it; and immediately she had played the vicar into the vestry after service that Sunday she left the congregation organless and hurried away into the churchyard.  There she stood and waited for the villagers to question them about this unheard of thing; and it was bad to see how they melted away in other directions,—­out at unused gates, making detours over the grass, visiting the long-neglected graves of relatives, anywhere rather than along the ordinary way, which was the path where the vicar’s wife stood.  At last came Mrs. Vickerton the postmistress.  She was deep in conversation with the innkeeper’s wife, and did not see the figure on the path in time to melt away herself.  If she had she certainly would have melted, for though she had no children but her grown-up son she felt very guilty; for it was her son who had been sent the afternoon before to Minehead by Priscilla with a list as long as his arm of the cakes and things to be ordered for the party.  “Oh Mrs. Morrison, I didn’t see you,” she exclaimed, starting and smiling and turning red.  She was a genteel woman who called no one mum.

The innkeeper’s wife slipped deftly away among graves.

“Is it true that the children are going to Baker’s Farm this afternoon?” asked Mrs. Morrison, turning and walking grimly by Mrs. Vickerton.

“I did hear something about it, Mrs. Morrison,” said Mrs. Vickerton, hiding her agitation behind a series of smiles with sudden endings.

“All?”

“I did hear they pretty well all thought of it,” said Mrs. Vickerton, coughing.  “Beautiful weather, isn’t it, Mrs. Morrison.”

“They are to have tea there?”

Mrs. Vickerton gazed pleasantly at the clouds and the tree-tops.  “I should think there might be tea, Mrs. Morrison,” she said; and the vision of that mighty list of cakes rising before her eyes made her put up her hand and cough again.

“Have the parents lost their senses?”