then it would have been all up with High Street. The tongues broke
out like live things ready to lick up everything; and it was like
killing dragons to go at them with the hose and buckets. I declare
my arms are fit to drop out of their sockets. And the Rector
devoted himself to carrying out bed-ridden old women. I forgot to
tell you, Lady Rosamond, he has broken his--There now, I never meant
to frighten you--broken his spectacles."

"You did it on purpose," she said, laughing at her own start.

"No, indeed, I did not."

"And is it quite out now?"

"Yes; when the Backsworth engines and the soldiers came up, it was
like the Prussians at Waterloo."

"Oh, then it was done," said Rosamond. "Take care! my grandfather
was in the Light Division."

"And my uncle in the Guards," said the curate. But before the
Waterloo controversy could be pursued, four or five figures on
horseback came round the knoll, and Raymond and Julius sprang off
their horses, introducing the three officers who followed their
example.

One was Rosamond's old acquaintance, the Colonel, a friend of her
father; but she had little attention to spare for them till she had
surveyed her husband, who looked nothing worse than exceedingly
dusty, and at fault without his spectacles.