stand by her, if he'd kept his head and laughed in their silly faces,
instead of grizzling and growling and stampeding out of the parish as
if poor Ally had disgraced him."

"Well--it isn't a very pleasant thing for the Vicar of the parish----"

"It wasn't a very pleasant thing for any of us. But it was beastly of
him to go back on her like that. And the silliness of it! Caring so
frightfully about what people think, and then going on so as to make
them think it."

"Think what?"

"That she really _had_ done something."

"Do you suppose they did?"

"Yes. You can't blame them. He couldn't have piled it on more if she
_had_. It's enough to make her."

"Oh Gwenda!"

"It would be his own fault. Just as it's his own fault that he hates
her."

"He doesn't hate her. He's fond of all of us, in his way."

"Wot of Ally. Don't you know why? He can't look at her without
thinking of how awful _he_ is."