This was a sly thrust at Susan Yellam, one of the few villagers who took in and read a halfpenny paper.
"Nor do I, Jane, for such as you means. Parson says you find in a book just what you bring to 'un. There's folks in Nether-Applewhite as brings nothing, nothing at all."
Mrs. Mucklow helped herself to a second slice of cake. Alfred lit his pipe, hoping that Fancy would stand her ground when his mother opened fire. Mrs. Yellam smiled graciously at her guest. She might be "spindling," but she looked intelligent. Nevertheless, she distrusted intelligence in very young women. Undisciplined, it might turn a modest maid into a militant suffragette. From all such, Good Lord, deliver us! A Nether-Applewhite girl, at the head of her class in school, had joined the Salvation Army, and now banged a tambourine in Southampton. Sometimes she wondered whether her own Lizzie mightn't have turned out a handful. Such a possibility almost resigned her to the loss of a child very precocious and with a strong will of her own. You will understand the temperament and character of Susan Yellam better if you grasp the fact that she endeavoured, habitually, to explain the mysterious workings of Providence both to herself and to her neighbours. She had been a devoted wife and mother, but, marking as she did the disconcerting changes in young women of her acquaintance, she was forced to the conclusion that many mothers profited by losing their prayers. God Almighty knew best. She addressed Fancy again:
"You live in Salisbury?"
"I do, Mrs. Yellam."
"My son tells me that there be many radicals in the town."
"I daresay."
"Be you true blue or yaller?"
"I don't quite understand."
"Be you Conservative or Radical?"