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 be dancing, but now the music had stopped and they were just walking about. There was something about their air of disconnected jollity which reminded Laura of a Primrose League gala and fête. A couple of bullocks watched the Sabbath from an adjoining field.

Laura was denied the social gift, she had never been good at enjoying parties. But this, she hoped, would be a different and more exhilarating affair. She entered the field in a most propitious frame of mind, which not even Mr. Gurdon, wearing a large rosette like a steward's and staring rudely and searchingly at each comer before he allowed them to pass through the gate, was able to check.

"Old Goat!" exclaimed Mrs. Leak in a voice of contemptuous amusement after they had passed out of Mr. Gurdon's hearing. "He thinks he can boss us here, just as he does in the village."

"Is Mr. Jones here?" inquired Laura.

Mrs. Leak shook her head and laughed.

"Mr. Gurdon doesn't allow him to come."

"I suppose he doesn't think it suitable for a clergyman."

Perhaps it was as well that Mr. Gurdon had such strict views. In spite of the example of