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respected and even revered more than anyone in Riseborough. She would have liked to wave her hand to him too, only the Reverend Thomas Pettit would certainly have thought such a proceeding to be very odd conduct. He was county too - very much county, although a clergyman - being the son of that wealthy and distressing peer, Lord Evesham, who occasionally came into Riseborough on county business. On these occasions he lunched at the club, instead of going to his son’s house, but did not eat the club lunch, preferring to devour in the smoking room, like an ogre with false teeth, sandwiches which seemed to be made of fish in their decline. Mrs Ames, who could not be called a religious woman, but was certainly very high church, was the most notable of Mr Pettit’s admirers, and, indeed, had set quite a fashion in going to the services at St Barnabas’, which were copiously embellished by banners, vestments and incense. Indeed, she went there in adoration of him as much as for any other reason, for he seemed to her to be a perfect apostle. He was rich, and gave far more than half his goods to feed the poor; he was eloquent, and (she would not have used so common a phrase) let them all ‘have it’ from his pulpit, and she was sure he was rapidly wearing himself out with work. And how thrilling it would be to address her rather frequent notes to him with the title ‘The Reverend The Lord Evesham’! … She gave a heavy sigh, and decided to flutter her podgy hand in his direction for a greeting as she turned into her gate.
    The little dinner which had so agitated Riseborough for the last three weeks gave Mrs Ames no qualms at all.Whatever happened at her house was right, and she never had any reason to wonder, like minor dinner givers, if things would go off well, since she and no other was responsible for the feast; it was Mrs Ames’ dinner party. It was summoned for a quarter to eight, and at half past ten somebody’s carriage would be announced, and she would say, ‘I hope nobody is thinking of going away yet,’ in consequence of which everybody would go away at twenty minutes to eleven instead. If anybody expected to play cards or smoke in the drawing room, he would be disappointed, because these diversions did not form part of the curriculum. The gentlemen had one cigarette in the dining room after their wine and with their coffee: then they followed the ladies and indulged in the pleasures of conversation. Mrs Ames always sat in a chair by the window, and always as the clock struck ten she re-sorted her conversationalists. That was (without disrespect) a parlour trick of the most supreme and unfathomable kind. There was always some natural reason why she should get up, and quite as naturally two or three people got up too. Then a sort of involuntary general post took place. Mrs Ames annexed the seat of the risen woman whose partner she intended to talk to, and instantly said, ‘Do tell me, because I am so much interested … ’ upon which her new partner sat down again. The ejected female then wandered disconsolately forward till she found herself talking to some man who had also got up. Therefore they sat down again together. But no one in Riseborough could do the trick as Mrs Ames could do it. Mrs Altham had often tried, and her efforts always ended in everybody sitting down again exactly where they had been before, after standing for a moment, as if an inaudible grace was being said. But Mrs Ames, though not socially jealous (for, being the queen of Riseborough society, she had nobody to bejealous of), was a little prone to spoil this parlour trick when she was dining at other houses, by suddenly developing an earnest conversation with her already existing partner, when she saw that her hostess contemplated a copy of her famous manoeuvre. Yet, after all, she was within her rights, for the parlour trick was her own patent, and it was quite proper to thwart the