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unconventionality, which sometimes is very refreshing, but can be rather embarrassing. Devoted to her art. She paints strange pictures, men and women with no clothes on. One has to be careful to knock when one goes to see quaint Irene in her studio. But a great original.’
    ‘And then when we turned up out of the High Street,’ said Georgie eagerly, ‘we met another Rolls-Royce. I was afraid we shouldn’t be able to pass it.’
    ‘So was I,’ said Miss Mapp unintentionally betraying theI fact that she had been watching from the garden-room. ‘That car is always up and down this street here.’
    ‘A large woman in it,’ said Lucia. ‘Wrapped in sables on this broiling day. A little man beside her.’
    ‘Mr and Mrs Wyse,’ said Miss Mapp. ‘Lately married. She was Mrs Poppit, MBE. Very worthy, and such a crashing snob.’
    As soon as tea was over and the inhabitants of Tilling thus plucked and roasted, the tour of the house was made. There were charming little panelled parlours with big windows letting in a flood of air and sunshine and vases of fresh flowers on the tables. There was a broad staircase with shallow treads, and every moment Lucia became more and more enamoured of the plain well-shaped rooms. It all looked so white and comfortable, and, for one wanting a change, so different from the Hurst with its small latticed windows, its steep irregular stairs, its single steps, up or down, at the threshold of every room. People of the age of Anne seemed to have a much better idea of domestic convenience, and Lucia’s Italian exclamations grew gratifyingly frequent. Into Miss Mapp’s own bedroom she went alone with the owner, leaving Georgie on the landing outside, for delicacy would not permit his looking on the scene where Miss Mapp nightly disrobed herself, and the bed where she nightly disposed herself. Besides, it would be easier for Lucia to ask that important point-blank question of terms, and for herself to answer it if they were alone.
    ‘I’m charmed with the house,’ said Lucia. ‘And what exactly, how much I mean, for a period of two months –’
    ‘Fifteen guineas a week,’ said Miss Mapp without pause. ‘That would include the use of my piano. A sweet instrument by Blumenfelt.’
    ‘I will take it for August and September,’ said Lucia.
    ‘And I’m sure I hope you’ll be as pleased with it,’ said Miss Mapp, ‘as I’m sure I shall be with my tenant.’
    A bright idea struck her, and she smiled more widely than ever.
    ‘That would not include, of course, the wages of my gardener, such a nice steady man,’ she said, ‘or garden-produce.Flowers for the house by all means, but not fruit or vegetables.’
    At that moment Lucia, blinded by passion for Mallards, Tilling and the Tillingites, would have willingly agreed to pay the water-rate as well. If Miss Mapp had guessed that, she would certainly have named this unusual condition.
    Miss Mapp, as requested by Lucia, had engaged rooms for her and Georgie at a pleasant hostelry near by, called the Trader’s Arms, and she accompanied them there with Lucia’s car following, like an empty carriage at a funeral, to see that all was ready for them. There must have been some misunderstanding of the message, for Georgie found that a double bedroom had been provided for them. Luckily Lucia had lingered outside with Miss Mapp, looking at the view over the marsh, and Georgie with embarrassed blushes explained at the bureau that this would not do at all, and the palms of his hands got cold and wet until the mistake was erased and remedied. Then Miss Mapp left them and they went out to wander about the town. But Mallards was the magnet for Lucia’s enamoured eye, and presently they stole back towards it. Many houses apparently were to be let furnished in Tilling just now, and Georgie too grew infected with the desire to have one. Riseholme would be very dismal without Lucia, for the moment the fête was over he felt sure that an appalling