In such a peaceful corner as St. Rest it was a very day of days. Tourists seldom disturbed its tranquillity, the 'Mother Huff' public-house affording but sorry entertainment to such parties; the motor-bicycle, with its detestable noise, insufferable odour and dirty, oil-stained rider in goggled spectacles, was scarcely ever seen,--and motor-cars always turned another way on leaving the county town of Riversford, in order to avoid the sharp ascent from the town, as well as the still sharper and highly dangerous descent into the valley again, where the little mediaeval village lay nestled. Thus it was enabled to gather to itself a strangely beautiful halcyon calm on the Lord's Day,--and in fair Spring weather like the present, dozed complacently under the quiet smile of serene blue skies, soothed to sleep by the rippling flow of its ribbon-like river, and receiving from hour to hour a fluttering halo of doves' wings, as these traditional messengers of peace flew over the quaint old houses, or rested on the gabled roofs, spreading out their snowy tails like fans to the warmth of the sun. The churchyard was the recognised meeting-place for all the gossips of the village after the sermon was over and the blessing pronounced,--and the brighter and warmer the weather, the longer and more desultory the conversation.

On this special Sunday, the worthy farmers and their wives, with their various cronies and confidants, gathered together in larger groups than usual, and lingered about more than was even their ordinary habit. Their curiosity was excited,--so were their faculties of criticism. The new servants from the Manor had attended church, sitting all together in a smart orderly row, and suggesting in their neat spick-and-span attire an unwonted note of novelty, of fashion, of change, nay, even of secret and suppressed society wickedness. Their looks, their attitudes, their whisperings, their movements, furnished plenty of matter to talk about,--particularly as Mrs. Spruce had apparently 'given herself airs' and marshalled them in and marshalled them out again, without stopping to talk to her village friends as usual,--which was indeed a veritable marvel,- -or to vouchsafe any information respecting the expected return of her new mistress, an impending event which was now well known throughout the whole neighbourhood. Oliver Leach, the land agent, had arrived at the church-door in an open dog-cart, and had sat through the service looking as black as thunder, or as Bainton elegantly expressed it: 'as cheerful as a green apple with a worm in it.' Afterwards, he had driven off at a rattling pace, exchanging no word with anyone. Such conduct, so the village worthies opined, was bound to be included among the various signs and tokens which were ominous of a coming revolution in the moral and domestic atmosphere of St. Rest.