about it. Though Miss Prince was acquainted with every man, woman, and child in Terriford she led a somewhat solitary life in the Thatched Cottage, a pleasant little house which formed a kind of enclave in the Thatched House property. Thus propinquity had something to do with the friendship between the younger and the older woman.

There was one great difference, however, between them. Miss Prince was what some people call “churchy,” while Agatha Cheale never went to church at all, and on one occasion she had spoken to Dr. Maclean with a slightly contemptuous amusement of those who did.

The doctor was close to the wrought-iron gate giving into the road which led to his own house when, suddenly, he espied this very lady, Miss Prince, coming toward him. She held a basket in her hand, and he did not need to be told that it contained some dainty intended for Mrs. Garlett. Like so many sharp-tongued mortals, Miss Prince often did kind things, yet her opening remark was characteristic of her censorious attitude to her fellow creatures.

“It’s a good thing that Harry Garlett’s rather more at his factory just now. If it weren’t for poor old Dodson, that Etna China business would have gone to pieces long ago! I never saw a man gad about as he does——”

Without giving the doctor time to answer, she went on: “No change in poor Emily, I suppose?” She smiled disagreeably. “I expect you’d like to have ten other patients like her, Dr. Maclean?”

At once he carried the war into the enemy’s country.

“Did Dr. Prince like that type of tiresome, cantankerous, impossible-to-please patient?”

23“I know I was glad of them.”

23

“Very well for you who had the spending of the fees and none of the work!”

They generally sparred like this, jokingly in a sense, but with a sort of unpleasant edge to their banter.

“I don’t suppose Emily will ever get better—till she dies of old age,” laughed Miss Prince.

“As a matter of fact, she’s markedly less well than she was last year.”

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