But as neither she nor her son had any materials for deciding the point the remark hardly promoted conversation.

She added to it another of more effect.
"The Miss Bertrams have already made up their minds that she is to marry Oliver Marsham." "The deuce!" cried the startled Roughsedge.

"Beg your pardon, mother, but how can those old cats possibly know ?" "They can't know," said Mrs.Roughsedge, placidly.

"But as soon as you get a young woman like that into the neighborhood, of course everybody begins to speculate." "They mumble any fresh person, like a dog with a bone," said Roughsedge, indignantly.
They were passing across the broad village street.

On either hand were old timbered cottages, sun-mellowed and rain-beaten; a thatched roof showing here and there; or a bit of mean new building, breaking the time-worn line.