"Four murdered fowls they brought to me, and I had to pay for them; and they didn't give me the corpses, which I felt was too bad." "What ?" said Mrs.Duff-Whalley, deeply interested.

"Did you actually pay for the damage done and let them keep the fowls ?" "I did," Mr.Jackson owned gloomily, and the topic lasted until the fruit was handed round.
"I wonder," said Mrs.Jowett to her hostess, as she peeled a pear, "if you have met a newcomer in Priorsford--Miss Reston?
She has taken Miss Bathgate's rooms." "You mean the Honourable Pamela Reston?
She is a daughter of the late Lord Bidborough of Bidborough Manor, Surrey, and Mintern Abbas, Oxfordshire, and sister of the present peer: I looked her up in Debrett.
I called on her, feeling it my duty to be civil to a stranger, but it seems to me a very odd thing that a peer's daughter would care to live in such a humble way.

Mark my words, there's something shady about it.
As likely as not, she's an absconding lady's-maid--but a call commits one to nothing.

She was out anyway, so I didn't see her." "Oh, indeed," said Mrs.Jowett, blushing pink, "Miss Reston is no impostor.

When you have seen her you will realise that.