CHAPTER III.
The festal tea had begun and Mrs.Thornburgh was presiding.

Opposite to her, on the vicar's left, sat the formidable rector's wife.

Poor Mrs.
Thornburgh had said to herself as she entered the room on the arm of Mr.
Mayhew, the incumbent of the neighboring valley of Shanmoor, that the first _coup d'aeil_ was good.

The flowers had been arranged in the afternoon by Rose; Sarah's exertions had made the silver shine again; a pleasing odor of good food underlay the scent of the bluebells and fern; and what with the snowy table-linen, and the pretty dresses and bright faces of the younger people, the room seemed to be full of an incessant play of crisp and delicate color.
But just as the vicar's wife was sinking into her seat with a little sigh of wearied satisfaction, she caught sight suddenly of an eye-glass at the other end of the table slowly revolving in a large and jewelled hand.

The judicial eye behind the eye-glass travelled round the table, lingering, as it seemed to Mrs.Thornburgh's excited consciousness, on every spot where cream or jelly or _meringue_ should have been and was not.