It was quite as warm on the following Thursday evening, when Mr. Dempster and his colleagues were to return from their mission to Elmstoke Rectory; but it was much pleasanter in Mrs. Linnet’s parlour than in the bar of the Red Lion. Through the open window came the scent¹ of mignonette and honeysuckle; the grass-plot in front of the house was shaded by a little plantation² of Gueldres roses, syringas, and laburnums; the noise of looms³ and carts and unmelodious voices reached the ear simply as an agreeable murmur⁴, for Mrs. Linnet’s house was situated⁵ quite on the outskirts⁶ of Paddiford Common; and the only sound likely to disturb the serenity⁷ of the feminine party assembled there, was the occasional buzz of intrusive⁸ wasps⁹, apparently¹⁰ mistaking each lady’s head for a sugar-basin. No sugar-basin was visible in Mrs. Linnet’s parlour, for the time of tea was not yet, and the round table was littered with books which the ladies were covering with black canvass¹¹ as a reinforcement of the new Paddiford Lending Library. Miss Linnet, whose manuscript was the neatest type of zigzag¹², was seated at a small table apart, writing on green paper tickets, which were to be pasted on the covers. Miss Linnet had other

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