"
"Listen to him! As though that weren't the hardest thing in the world.
Giving out! Giving out! What is so exhausting, and yet what so worth while
in the end? Unselfishness! I really sometimes feel that is the true secret
of life."
"Have one of those little cakes, Julia," said Miss Ronder drily. She,
unlike her nephew, bothered about very few people indeed. "Make a good
tea."
"I will, as you want me to, dear Alice," said Mrs. Preston. "Oh, thank
you, Canon Ronder! How good of you; ah, there! I've dropped my little bag.
It's under that table. Thank you a thousand times! And isn't it strange
about Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris?"
"Isn't what strange?" asked Miss Ronder, regarding her guest with grim
cynicism.
"Oh well--nothing really, except that every one's asking what they can
find in common. They're always together. Last Monday Aggie Combermere met
her coming out of the Rectory, then Ellen Stiles saw them in the Precincts
last Sunday afternoon, and I saw them myself this morning in the High
Street."
"My dear Mrs. Preston," said Ronder, "why _shouldn't_ they go about
together?"
"No reason at all," said Mrs.
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