introduced little Nellie to the acquaintance of Carlo who had not seen so
pretty a little girl for many a day, and capered and wagged his feathery
tail in a manner most unseemly for so clerical a dog.

So it came about that Mrs. Goddard established herself at Billingsfield
and made her first visit to the vicarage. After that the ice was broken
and things went on smoothly enough. Mrs. Ambrose's hints concerning
foreign blood, and her husband's invariable remonstrance to the effect
that she ought to be more charitable, grew more and more rare as time
went on, and finally ceased altogether. Mrs. Goddard became a regular
institution, and ceased to astonish the inhabitants. Mr. Thomas Reid, the
sexton, was heard to remark from time to time that he "didn't hold with
th'm newfangle fashins in dress;" but he was a regular old conservative,
and most people agreed with Mr. Abraham Boosey of the Duke's Head, who
had often been to London, and who said she did "look just A one, slap up,
she did!"

Mrs. Goddard became an institution, and in the course of the first year
of her residence in the cottage it came to be expected that she should
dine at the vicarage at least once a week; and once a week, also, Mr. and
Mrs. Ambrose went up and had tea with her and little Eleanor at the
cottage. It came to pass also that Mrs. Goddard heard a vast deal of talk
about John Short and his successes at Trinity, and she actually developed
a lively interest in his career, and asked for news of him almost as
eagerly as though he had been already a friend of her own. In very quiet
places people easily get into the sympathetic habit of regarding their
neighbours' interests as very closely allied to their own. The constant
talk about John Short, the vicar's sanguine hopes for his brilliant
future, and Mrs. Ambrose's unlimited praise of his moral qualities,
repeated day by day and week by week produced a vivid impression on Mrs.