“My interest in my future parishioners is quite keen, I assure you—though I don’t know that it extends to their furniture,” replied the rector, laughing.
“Oh, well, it’s nice to know that some one has taken the Priory who is in a position to keep it up properly,” persisted his sister. “Don’t you agree, Miss Lovell?”
“Of course,” said Ann. “Besides”—smiling across at the rector—“as we’re as poor as church mice, it’s just as well the new arrival at the Priory should he rich—to even things up.”
“I think it’s all very interesting,” pursued Miss Caroline, still intent on her own train of thought. “Here’s Mr. Coventry come home at last to live at Heronsmere—a very eligible bachelor—and with this Mrs. Hilyard, a wealthy widow, living so near by it wouldn’t be at all surprising if something came of it.”
The rector jumped up, laughing good-humouredly.
“Caroline! Caroline! I must really take you home after that, or Miss Lovell will think Silverquay is a veritable hot-bed of gossip. Coventry hasn’t been in the neighbourhood a month, poor man, and here you are trying to tie him up with a lady who doesn’t even arrive until this afternoon!”
“Besides,” suggested Robin, smiling broadly, “she may be a really disconsolate widow, you know.”
Miss Caroline shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she answered obstinately. “The furniture didn’t look like it. One of the packages was a little torn, and I caught sight of the curtains inside. They were rose colour.”
“That was really quite bright of Miss Caroline,” observed Ann with some amusement, when the rector and his sister had started for home. “Only she didn’t know it!”