"How about Sunday? Just after dinner? He'll be clean then."
"All right. Sunday."
But it was not till they had passed the schoolhouse outside Garth
village that Alice's great idea came to her.
"Gwenda! The Concert! Wouldn't he be ripping for the Concert!"
XX
But the concert was not till the first week in December; and it was
in November that Rowcliffe began to form the habit that made him
remarkable in Garth, of looking in at the Vicarage toward teatime
every Wednesday afternoon.
Mrs. Gale, informed by Essy, was the first to condole with Mrs.
Blenkiron, the blacksmith's wife, who had arranged to provide tea for
Rowcliffe every Wednesday in the Surgery.
"Wall, Mrs. Blenkiron," she said, "yo' 'aven't got to mak' tae for
yore doctor now?"
"Naw. I 'aven't," said Mrs. Blenkiron. "And it's sexpence clane gone
out o' me packet av'ry week."
Mrs. Blenkiron was a distant cousin of the Greatorexes. She had
what was called a superior manner and was handsome, in the slender,
high-nosed, florid fashion of the Dale.
"But there," she went on. "I doan't groodge it. 'E's yoong and you
caann't blaame him. They's coompany for him oop at Vicarage."
"'E's coompany fer they, I rackon. And well yo' med saay yo' doan't
groodge it ef yo knawed arl we knaw, Mrs. Blenkiron. It's no life fer
yoong things oop there, long o' t' Vicar. Mind yo"--Mrs. Gale
lowered her voice and looked up and down the street for possible
eavesdroppers--"ef 'e was to 'ear on it, thot yoong Rawcliffe wouldn't
be 'lowed t' putt 's nawse in at door agen.
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