Mavis too gave parties; but she as a rule exercised her hospitality at the back of the house, where the little court and the petitioners’ bench near the kitchen door were more fully occupied than ever.  Here took place the annual summer tea-party for the cottage women, when Mavis was quite like some squire’s wife, being courtesied to, receiving votes of thanks, and taking innocent pleasure in the proudness of her position.  A far bigger and more difficult affair was when she invited all the children from the Orphanage.  Long trestle tables for the girls were set out on the grass paths of the kitchen garden, with a separate and more stately table for the matrons and governesses; urns had been borrowed, seats hired, mountains of food and fruit got ready; and nevertheless the heart of Mavis almost failed her when the two-and-two procession of blue-coated orphans began to arrive.  It seemed endless, an army, and she felt that she had attempted something too big for her resources.  However, everything went off splendidly.  The orphans whooped for joy as they broke their formation and spread out, through the garden, far into the meadows.  Out there they looked like large bluebells; and at tea, when their cloaks had been removed and their brown frocks showed, they looked like locusts.  Locusts could scarcely have eaten more.  After tea Dale’s men came from the yard and brought the piano out of the house, and Mrs. Dale played with stiff fingers while Norah Veale, Rachel, and the orphans danced on the flags and up and down the grass paths.  The poor little orphans stayed late, and left regretfully.  They said it had been the treat of their lives.

But the most interesting party and the one that Mavis enjoyed most came upon her unexpectedly.

One week Mr. Druitt the higgler failed to pay his usual visit, and there was conjecture in the Vine-Pits kitchen as to the reason of his absence.  He had never before allowed a week to pass without a call.  Mavis asked Mary if he had written to her explaining his absence; and Mary said no, and that she felt very anxious.

But next week he turned up, gay, jovial, looking ten years younger.  He stood just inside the kitchen door, smiled at all, and winked most archly at Mary.

“See this, Mary?” And he pointed to the band of black crape on his arm.  “Know what that means, Mary?” Then he turned to Mavis.  “I call her Mary now, because I can do it with a clear conscience, ma’am.  I buried Mrs. Druitt yesterday.”

This meant a marriage feast for Mary; nor would the higgler permit of the least delay in its preparation.  He was ardent to taste the felicity that had been so long postponed, and refused to listen to any appeals that might be addressed to his sense of propriety, the respect due to the departed, and so forth.  Dale, inclined to say he would not put up with Druitt’s nonsense, was overborne; chiefly because Mary, having been greatly scared by a facetious remark of her lover, at once took his part in the dispute.  He had said, when she pleaded with him for a reasonable breathing-space, that he knew of as many other red-cheeked maids as there were morris-apples at akering-time.  Mary then bustled with her trousseau, of which the cost was defrayed by the Dales.