A disconsolate quintet of minstrels—three men with blackened faces carrying banjoes in cases, followed by two girls in crumpled white pierrot dresses, passed as she was speaking.
"It must be pretty bad for them," continued Mrs. Cappell, looking after the little band.
"Poor things!" she said, "they won't get much out of the local residents."
They were silent a moment.
"Well," said Mrs. Dampier at last, "the bus will be starting in five minutes, and I don't want to miss it."
She hastened away to buy her eau de Cologne and to take her seat in the bus, which was waiting at the corner of the churchyard.
A quarter of an hour later she was back again among her roses. She sat, as was her custom, in the little summer-house, built at the end of the terrace, whence she might look out across the
