"Only the young lady's uncle, and--"
Mrs. Vickerton hesitated, and looked at the vicar's wife with a
slightly puzzled air.
"And who?"
"Of course Mr. Robin."
XII
It is the practice of Providence often to ignore the claims of poetic
justice. Properly, the Symford children ought to have been choked by
Priscilla's cakes; and if they had been, the parents who had sent them
merrymaking on a Sunday would have been well punished by the
undeniable awfulness of possessing choked children. But nobody was
choked; and when in the early days of the following week there were in
nearly every cottage pangs being assuaged, they were so naturally the
consequence of the strange things that had been eaten that only Mrs.
Morrison was able to see in them weapons being wielded by Providence
in the cause of eternal right. She, however, saw it so plainly that
each time during the next few days that a worried mother came and
asked advice, she left her work or her meals without a murmur, and
went to the castor-oil cupboard with an alacrity that was almost
cheerful; and seldom, I suppose, have such big doses been supplied and
administered as the ones she prescribed for suffering Symford.
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