Meanwhile the village sorely missed the bright face and sweet ways of ‘th’ owld Squire’s gel’—­and many of the inhabitants tried to get news of her through Mrs. Spruce, but all in vain.  That good lady, generally so talkative, was for once in her life more than discreetly dumb.  All that she would say was that she “didn’t know nothink.  Miss Maryllia ‘ad gone abroad an’ all ’er letters was sent to London solicitors.  Any other address?  No—­no other address.  The servants was to be kep’ on—­no one wasn’t goin’ to lose their places if they behaved theirselves, which please the Lord, they will do!”—­ she concluded, with much fervour.  Bennett, the groom, was entrusted with the care of the mares Cleo and Daffodil, and might be seen exercising them every day on the open moors beyond the village, accompanied by the big dog Plato,—­and so far as the general management of affairs was concerned, that was ably undertaken by the agent Stanways, who though civil and obliging to all the tenantry, had no news whatever to give respecting the absence or the probable return of the lady of the Manor.  The Reverend Putwood Leveson occasionally careered through the village on his bicycle, accompanied by Oliver Leach who bestrode a similar machine, and both individuals made a point of grinning broadly as they passed the church and rectory of St. Rest, jerking their fingers and thumbs at both buildings with expressively suggestive contempt.

And by and by the people began to settle down, into the normal quietude which had been more or less their lot, before Maryllia, with her vivacious little musical protegee Cicely Bourne had awakened a new interest and animation in the midst of their small community,—­and they began to resign themselves to the idea that her ‘whim’ for residing once more in the home of her childhood had passed, and that she would now, without doubt, marry the future Duke of Ormistoune, and pass away from the limited circle of St. Rest to those wider spheres of fashion, the splendours of which, mere country-folk are not expected to have more than the very faintest glimmering conception.  Even in that independent corner of opinion, the tap-room of the ‘Mother Huff,’ her name was spoken with almost bated breath, though Mr. Netlips was not by any means loth to spare any flow of oratorical eloquence on the subject.

“I think, Mr. Buggins,” he said one evening, addressing ‘mine host’ with due gravity—­“I think you will recall to your organisation certain objective propositions I made with regard to Miss Vancourt, when that lady first entered into dominative residence at Abbot’s Manor.  Personally speaking, I have no discrepancies to suggest beyond the former utterance.  Matters in which I have taken the customary mercantile interest have culminated with the lady to the satisfaction of all sides.  Nothing has been left standing controversially on my books.  Nevertheless it would be repudiative to say that I have sophisticated my previous opinion.  I said then, and I confirm the observation, that a heathen cannot enjoy the prospective right of the commons.”