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N Little Bilstead, life passed decorously from sun- rise to sundown and from sundown to sunrise. Few events disturbed the studied calm of its atmos- phere. A new hat or an indiscretion on the part of a domestic were equally topics of absorbing interest. Nothing ever happened, that is nothing had happened for the last seven years.

Sometimes, Miss Small, who eked out an insignifi- cant pension by doing dressmaking, would sigh for the days when the village had seethed with scandal. It lent an added spice to existence. The morning knew not what the evening would bring forth.

During the next forty-eight hours Smith learned something of the dramatic excitements with which life in Little Bilstead had been fraught some six years pre- viously. The village then had seethed with scandal, and the people went about on the tiptoe of excitement.

John Postle, the village constable, would rub the right-hand side of his chin with his thumb and say, "Well, bor, what d'you think on it?" and there would be a shaking of heads and probably an "I'll be danged" or two from his hearers.

In the sanded bar of The Pigeons, there had been great discussions, and the wildness of the rumours that were retailed would have appalled any but the most 140