It shocked even me.

One knows what goes on in one's own village, of course.
And it's only too true that there's hundreds of Slingsbys--I'm not boring you, am I ?" I did not answer for a moment.

"I--I had no idea," I said; "I have been so long out of it and over there one did not realise the ...

the feeling." "You've been well out of it," she answered; "one has had to suffer, I assure you." I believed that she had had to suffer; it must have taken a good deal to make that lady complain.

Her large, ruddy features followed the droop of her eyes down to the fringe of the parasol that she was touching the turf with.