That which the Hall or Manor House believed last night, known only to the four walls of its drawing-room, is discussed over the cottage breakfast tables as though presented in detail through the columns of the Morning Post.  The vicarage, the smithy, the post office, the little provision shop, are instantaneously informed as by magic of such incidents of interest as occur, and are prepared to assist vicariously at any future developments.  Through what agency information is given no one can tell, and, indeed, the agency is of small moment.  Facts of interest are perhaps like flights of swallows and dart chattering from one red roof to another, proclaiming themselves aloud.  Nothing is so true as that in such villages they are the property and innocent playthings of man, woman, and child, providing conversation and drama otherwise likely to be lacked.

When Miss Vanderpoel walked through Stornham village street she became aware that she was an exciting object of interest.  Faces appeared at cottage windows, women sauntered to doors, men in the taproom of the Clock Inn left beer mugs to cast an eye on her; children pushed open gates and stared as they bobbed their curtsies; the young woman who kept the shop left her counter and came out upon her door step to pick up her straying baby and glance over its shoulder at the face with the red mouth, and the mass of black hair rolled upward under a rough blue straw hat.  Everyone knew who this exotic-looking young lady was.  She had arrived yesterday from London, and a week ago by means of a ship from far-away America, from the country in connection with which the rural mind curiously mixed up large wages, great fortunes and Indians.  “Gaarge” Lunsden, having spent five years of his youth labouring heavily for sixteen shillings a week, had gone to “Meriker” and had earned there eight shillings a day.  This was a well-known and much-talked over fact, and had elevated the western continent to a position of trust and importance it had seriously lacked before the emigration of Lunsden.  A place where a man could earn eight shillings a day inspired interest as well as confidence.  When Sir Nigel’s wife had arrived twelve years ago as the new Lady Anstruthers, the story that she herself “had money” had been verified by her fine clothes and her way of handing out sovereigns in cases where the rest of the gentry, if they gave at all, would have bestowed tea and flannel or shillings.  There had been for a few months a period of unheard of well-being in Stornham village; everyone remembered the hundred pounds the bride had given to poor Wilson when his place had burned down, but the village had of course learned, by its occult means, that Sir Nigel and the Dowager had been angry and that there had been a quarrel.  Afterwards her ladyship had been dangerously ill, the baby had been born a hunchback, and a year had passed before its mother had been seen again.  Since then she had been a changed creature; she had