The little town of Market Blandings was a peaceful sight as it slept in the sun. For the first time since Freddie had left her, Eve became conscious of a certain tranquillity as she entered the old grey High Street, which was the centre of the place’s life and thought. Market Blandings had a comforting air of having been exactly the same for centuries. Troubles might vex the generations it housed, but they did not worry that lichened church with its sturdy four-square tower, nor those red-roofed shops, nor the age-old inns whose second stories bulged so comfortably out over the pavements. As Eve walked in slow meditation towards the “Emsworth Arms,” the intensely respectable hostelry which was her objective, archways met her gaze, opening with a picturesque unexpectedness to show heartenin
