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"GOOD-morning, Mr. Leach!" said Walden pointedly. But Leach stood still, looking askance at Maryllia. "Miss Vancourt," he said, hoarsely; "Am I to understand that you meant what you said just now?" She glanced at him coldly. "That I dismiss you from my service? Of course I meant it! Of course I mean it!" "I am bound to have fair notice," he muttered. "I cannot collect all my accounts in a moment "
And go right through the house, and collect every remaining feather you can find and then and then " Here she paused dubiously. "You mustn't burn them, you know! That would be unluckier still!" "Lor! Would it now, Miss? I never should 'ave thought it!" murmured Mrs. Spruce plaintively, grasping her apronful of 'horrible witch- eyes'; "What on earth shall I do with them?" Maryllia considered.
And when the children's choir rose to give the 'Hark the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King' their voices were unsteady and fell out of tune into tears. Maryllia was indeed in 'imminent peril. She had become suddenly restless, and her suffering had proportionately increased.
Within a very few days St. Rest became aware of Cicely's quaint personality, for she soon succeeded in making herself familiar with everybody in the place. She had a knack of winning friends. She visited old Josey Letherbarrow, and made him laugh till he nearly choked, so that Maryllia had to pat him vigorously on the back to enable him to recover his breath she cut jokes with Mrs.
"And anything I can do for you, Spruce, or for your husband," continued Maryllia, dropping her business-like tone for one of as coaxing a sweetness as ever Shakespeare's Juliet practised for the persuasion of her too tardy Nurse "will be done with ever so much pleasure! You know that, don't you?"
He might have thought there was something still more to wonder at if he could have looked into Josey Letterbarrow's cottage that evening and seen Maryllia there, sitting on a low stool at the old man's knee and patting his wrinkled hand tenderly, while she talked to him in a soft undertone and he listened with grave intentness and sagacity, though, also with something of sorrow.
There is nothing so irritating to a man of his type as to be made ridiculous. Maryllia had done this. In the most trifling, casual, and ordinary way she had compelled him to look like a fool. All his carefully laid plans were completely upset, and he fancied that even Longford, his tool, to whom he had freely confided his wishes and intentions, was secretly laughing at him.
"There was certainly a fine aroma in the air," he said "But it seemed to me no more than the customary perfume common to Mrs. Tapple's surroundings. I daresay it was new to you! A country clergyman is perhaps the only human being who has to inure himself to bacon odours as the prevailing sweetness of cottage interiors." Maryllia laughed.
That evening before joining her guests at the usual eight o'clock repast, Maryllia told Cicely Bourne of the disagreeable 'surprise' which had been treacherously contrived for her at Sir Morton Pippitt's tea-party by the unexpected presence of the loathed wooer whom she sought to avoid.
While she thus ran on, Walden was handling the telegraphic apparatus. His back was turned to Maryllia, but he felt her eyes upon him, as indeed they were, and there was a slight flush of colour in his bronzed cheeks as he presenty looked round and said: "May I have the telegram?" "There are two both for Paris," replied Maryllia, handing him the filled-up forms "One is quite easy in English."
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