CHAPTER IX.
The squire had remarked that John Short seemed to have a peculiar temper, and Mrs.Goddard had observed the same thing.

What has gone before sufficiently explains the change in John's manner, and the difference in his behaviour was plainly apparent even to Mr.and Mrs.Ambrose.

The vicar indeed was wise enough to see that John was very much attracted by Mrs.Goddard, but he was also wise enough to say nothing about it.

His wife, however, who had witnessed no love-making for nearly thirty years, except the courtship of the young physician who had married her daughter, attributed John's demeanour to no such disturbing cause.

He was overworked, she said; he was therefore irritable; he had of course never taken that excellent homoeopathic remedy, highly diluted aconite, since he had left the vicarage; the consequence was that he was subject to nervous headache--she only hoped he would not be taken ill on the eve of the examination for honours.