Penny Plain. O. Douglas

flying across the table. As it went it spattered everything with weak tea and then smashed itself against one of the candlesticks.

      "I wished at that moment that the world would come to an end. There seemed no other way of clearing up the mess. I was so ashamed, and so sorry for my poor Jock, I couldn't lift my eyes, but Mr. Jowett rose to the occasion and earned my affection and unending gratitude. He pretended to find it a very funny episode, and made so many jokes about it that stiffness vanished from the party, and we all became riotously happy. And Mrs. Jowett, whose heart must have been wrung to see the beautiful table ruined at the outset, so mastered her emotion as to be able to smile and say no harm had been done. … You must go with me and see Mrs. Jowett, only don't tell her anything in the very least sad: she weeps at the slightest provocation."

      "Tell me more," said Pamela—"tell me about all the people who live in those houses on the hill. It's like reading a nice Cranfordy book."

      "But," Jean objected, "we're not in the least like people in a book. I often wonder why Priorsford is so unlike a story-book little town. We're not nearly interested enough in each other for one thing. We don't gossip to excess. Everyone goes his or her own way. In books people do things or are suspected of doing things, and are immediately cut by a feverishly interested neighbourhood. I can't imagine that happening in Priorsford. No one ever does anything very striking, but if they did I'm sure they wouldn't be ostracised. Nobody would care much, except perhaps Mrs. Hope, and she would only be amused."

      "Mrs. Hope?"

      "Have you noticed a whitewashed house standing among trees about half a mile down Tweed from the bridge? That is Hopetoun, and Mrs. Hope and her daughter live there."

      "Nice?"

      Jean nodded her head like a wise mandarin. "You must meet Mrs. Hope. To describe her is far beyond my powers."

      "I see. Well, go on with the houses on the hill. Who lives in the one at the corner with the well-kept garden?"