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 house without buying anything, and—yes, the woman has taken up her basket and is leaving her pitch, don’t you call it? She too is crossing to this side of the road, but higher up. Steptoe has turned and is looking after her, and—now I can’t see any more without putting my head out of window.”

Sybil stopped, breathless; and, without comment on the episode she had just witnessed, the General informed her and Forsyth of the proposed move to Prior’s Tarrant. As was to be expected, neither of the engaged couple had any objection to an arrangement which would bring them together under the same roof, Sybil remarking naively that it was one thing to be allowed solitary house-room as a poor relation, and quite another to stay with the Duke as a guest. She promised to hold herself in readiness to join Mrs. Sadgrove and the Shermans on the morrow and go down with them, while Forsyth was to wait for his orders until the General returned in the afternoon.

“We may have a ticklish job in getting our noble convoy from one laager to the other, and I shall want you as an aide-de-camp, Alec, as