“His wife made him give up the job when he got to magna, mamma. Some of the old people are so superstitious. She was afraid he might be signing some compact about his soul with the devil.”
Pamela laughed. The conversation was waking up, she thought, but Mrs. Turle looked grave.
“It was in very bad taste,” she said, “and he need not have troubled. No one meant to call on such people.”
“And was it literature, dear?” she continued, more genially. “We are quite literary down here.” She laughed pleasantly, as if introducing Pamela to a congenial atmosphere. “What is the name of that person at the new house on the Liddleshorn Road, Nancy? She keeps a poultry farm and takes in type-writing.”
“Samuels, mamma.”
“Yes, Mrs. Samuels. And there is Mrs. Clutton at the Buttery. Her husband is a journalist—so she says.”
The last three words were spoken impressively. Pamela immediately divined that Mrs. Clutton, of the Buttery, was not a local favorite.
“Nancy has a great taste for literature,” Mrs. Turle continued, with a fond glance at her daughter, who immediately blushed. “I think that if there had ever been any question of her going out into the world she would have chosen literature.”
“Only I can never think of a subject,” Nancy said pathetically. “If only I could think of a subject and get somebody else to begin!”
“We subscribe to Smith’s,” Mrs. Turle said, smiling sweetly. “We like to keep abreast with the times. Nancy goes in for serious subjects; she is halfway through Ruskin’s——”