Julia Preston was to him the most boring woman
in Polchester. To herself she was the most important. She was a widow and
lived in a little green house with a little green garden in the Polchester
outskirts. She was as pretty as she had been twenty years before, exactly
the same, save that what nature had, twenty years ago, done for the
asking, it now did under compulsion. She believed the whole world in love
with her and was therefore a thoroughly happy woman. She had a healthy
interest in the affairs of her neighbours, however small they might be,
and believed in "Truth, Beauty, and the Improvement of the Lower Classes."
"Dear Canon Ronder, how nice this is!" she exclaimed. "You've been hard at
work all the afternoon, I know, and want your tea. How splendid work is! I
often think what would life be without it'."
Ronder, who took trouble with everybody, smiled, sat down near to her and
looked as though he loved her.
"Well, to be quite honest, I haven't been working very hard. Just seeing a
few people."
"Just seeing a few people!" Mrs. Preston used a laugh that was a favourite
of hers because she had once been told that it was like "a tinkling bell.
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