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‘I like it better,’ she said. ‘At first—last year— I thought I shouldn’t.’

‘By the way, your father used to preach in Hanbridge circuit—’

‘That was years ago,’ she said quickly.

‘But why won’t he preach here? I dare say you know that we are rather short of local preachers— good ones, that is.’

‘I can’t say why father doesn’t preach now:’ Anna flushed as she spoke. ‘You had better ask him that.’

‘Well, I will do,’ he laughed. ‘I am coming to see him soon—perhaps one night next week.’

Anna looked at Henry Mynors as he uttered the astonishing words. The Tellwrights had been in Bursley a year, but no visitor had crossed their doorsteps except the minister, once, and such poor defaulters as came, full of excuse and obsequious conciliation, to pay rent overdue.

‘Business, I suppose?’ she said, and prayed that he might not be intending to make a mere call of ceremony.

‘Yes, business,’ he answered lightly. ‘But you will be in?’

‘I am always in,’ she said. She wondered what the business could be, and felt relieved to know that his visit would have at least some assigned pretext; but already her heart beat with apprehensive perturbation at the thought of his presence in their household.