Miss Crofton had also stayed on in Beechfield, but only a day longer than
she had intended to do--that is, till the Tuesday. She and Miss Pendarth
had met more than once, striking up something like a real friendship. But
this, instead of modifying, had intensified Miss Pendarth's growing
prejudice against the new tenant of The Trellis House. She felt convinced
that the pretty young widow had made her kind sister-in-law believe that
she was far poorer, and more to be pitied, than she really was.
Life in an English village is in some ways like a quiet pool--and, just
as the throwing of a pebble into such a pool causes what appears to
create an extraordinary amount of commotion on the surface of the water,
so the advent of any human being who happens to be a little out of the
common produces an amount of discussion, public and private, which might
well seem to those outside the circle of gossip, extravagant, as well as
unnecessary.
The general verdict on Mrs. Crofton had begun by being favourable. Both
with gentle and simple her appealing beauty told in her favour, and very
soon the village people smiled, and looked knowingly at one another, as
they noted the perpetual coming and going of Jack Tosswill to The Trellis
House.
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