“You poor dear! Do let me know who finally chokes her!”
How we should have silenced her eventually I don’t know, but the matter was taken out of our hands by no less important a personage than Johnny, the boy who delivered the bread from the village shop.
Unable to find any Abigail at the kitchen door, he had come along to the other door to know how many loaves I required. From my seat in the room I tried to indicate, by dumb pantomime, that I wanted one loaf; Miss Smith caught sight of him, and remembering that she was two miles away from any bread if he overlooked her, she told him in a clear voice not to forget to leave her a loaf. Then everyone else in the room woke up to the fact that Johnny was outside, and with one accord they all asked him if he had remembered them, or told him how many loaves to leave, and no one troubled in the slightest whether it interfered with the speaker or not. In fact, they seemed to enjoy the clatter they were making.
Johnny, being attacked by so many voices at once, stood on the doorstep and addressed the room stolidly and respectfully—
“I’ve lef’ your loaf on the window-ledge, Miss Primkins; an’ I put two for you in the fork of the apple-tree, Miss Robinson, so’s the dog can’t get at it, as he’s loose; an’ Miss Jones, your’n is on the garden seat; and I’ve a-put Mrs. Wilson’s a-top of the wood-pile wiv a bit of paper under it”—(undue favouritism to Mrs. Wilson, we all thought!)—“an’ I’ve lef’ your nutmegs and soda and coffee on the doorstep, Miss White; and I driv a cow out of your garden, what had got in, Miss Parker; the gate was lef’ open; but he’s latched up all right now——”
At this intelligence the room gave a general shuffle, preparatory to a stampede. Why, a cow might have got into every garden! Who could tell? And only those who have cherished gardens in the country know what terrible import lurked in the words, “The gate was lef’ open!”
The Rector, seeing where matters were trending, said we would close with a hymn. Before he had given out more than one line, Ursula did what she had never done before, and has never done since—raised the tune! She said it was sheer hysterics made her do so. At any rate we all took it up vigorously, because we saw the Literary Lady was trying to add a postscript to her previous remarks. It’s true, Ursula started us on a six-lined tune, whereas the verses were only four lines each, but I fortunately discovered it in time, and repeated the last two lines to save the situation.
The people all left hurriedly as soon as the Benediction had been pronounced; most of them looking unutterable things at me for having let them in for such a time! The Literary Lady alone seemed to have enjoyed herself, and went away leaving the bundle of MSS. she had brought, after telling me that she intended to call on me the very next afternoon and bring me “The Cosmic Evidences,” as she felt sure it would be the very thing for my magazine. The unkindest cut of all, however, was the farewell remark made by the Vicar’s niece, as she was adjusting her bonnet-strings—