not only of Mr. Dodson’s health, but also of his brain.

It seems a shame to interrupt your holiday, but I really don’t know what to do. I am supposed to be the only person who has any influence over Mr. Dodson, but I have very little influence indeed, none where the real conduct of the business is concerned. My uncle agrees with me that you ought to know the state of things as soon as possible.

Jean Bower

He got up from where he had been lying so luxuriously in the long grass, feeling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. There was evidently nothing for it but to go home and face out a difficult and disagreeable situation. And yet he felt 48sharply annoyed with Jean Bower. No doubt she was exaggerating as to old Dodson’s condition. But there it was; he couldn’t neglect such a letter as that! He told himself that he had been a fool to leave a girl in so responsible a position.

48

This was why his friends and neighbours welcomed Harry Garlett back in their midst full three months before he had been expected home.

In such a place as Grendon everybody is interested in every other body’s business. As soon as he had come back Harry Garlett had sent off Jean Bower for a short holiday, and soon, to his mingled amusement and annoyance, he found he could hardly take a step down the High Street without some good-natured gossip telling him how splendidly the girl had managed poor crazy old Dodson! Even his head foreman seemed quite lost without her, and, as a matter of fact, things didn’t begin going right again till she came back, and in her quiet and diffident, yet competent, way, began to “put him wise” with regard to all those matters which Dodson had always tried to keep jealously in his own hands.

And then, as the days went on, Harry Garlett began to find himself taking a keen, even an excited, interest in his work. The business which had meant little to him in the old days now gripped and absorbed him, or so he honestly thought, to the exclusion of all else.

Times were bad, every one in the country economizing, going in more and more for the cheap, rather than for the good, and the china made in the Etna works had never been cheap, though always good. And soon it became known in the town that Harry Garlett was trying to prove what even now few people believe—that is, that homely, everyday objects can be cheap and beautiful at the same time.

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