Free (5/20)Over the Gate by Miss Read Page B

protested. 'Every day. I meet far too many souls. There are thirty-odd to be faced every morning.'
    'I mean men, ' snapped Amy with exasperation. 'There's no reason why you shouldn't get married, even at your age, and it's time someone took you in hand and made you see reason.'
    'But I don't want to get married!' I wailed. 'I should have done it years ago if I'd intended to do.'
    'And who,' said Amy coldly, 'ever asked you?'
    I began to laugh.
    'Well, there was that neighbour of yours who was in a constant state of inebriation and wanted someone to keep him from drinking—'
    'You can't count him,' said Amy firmly. 'He asked everyone.'
    'I can't think of anyone else at the moment,' I said.
    'I can tell you one thing,' said Amy, 'if you take up this attitude, and refuse to mae the Best of Yourself, then you are doomed to be an old maid.'
    'Suits me,' I said comfortably. 'Have some more tea.'
    Amy stirred her second cup thoughtfully.
    'There's still time,' she assured me. 'Look at Elsie Parker. Blundell, I mean. She's managed it.'
    'Blundell?' I queried. 'Not the Blundells who are moving to Fairacre?'
    Amy looked interested, and ceased stirring.
    'It's quite likely,' she said slowly. 'They are having a pair of cottages knocked into one house somewhere or other.'
    'It's here,' I assured her feelingly, 'I should know. The children spend most of their time watching the workmen. It was Mrs Pringle who mentioned the name Blundell, only this afternoon.'
    'That must be Elsie,' said Amy, 'and her newly-caught husband. Well, well, well! So they're settling in Fairacre!'
    Amy produced a beautiful powder box, a present from James after a week away, powdered her nose, and settled back in her chair.
    'Well, go on,' I urged. 'Tell me about my neighbours to be!'
    And, smiling indulgently, Amy began.

    It was generally agreed, in the little village of Bent, that Elsie Parker was an uncommonly pretty girl. She was the only child born to Roger and Lily Parker a year or two after the First World War. Her father returned from his arduous, if undistinguished, duties as an army baker to start afresh as part-owner of a small general store on the southern outskirts of Caxley.
    At first, he cycled the few miles to work on a venerable bicycle, but as the business prospered he changed to a small second-hand van with which he began to build up a modest delivery round. People liked Roger Parker. He was hardworking, honest and utterly reliable. If he said that he would bring the pickles in time for Monday's cold lunch, then you could be quite sure that the jar would be with you before the potatoes had come to the boil. He deserved to prosper, and he did.
    By the time Elsie was six, the shabby delivery van had been changed for two larger new ones which spent the day touring the district and the night safely locked up in the new shed at the rear of the general stores. Roger now owned a bull-nosed Morris tourer which he drove to work each morning. At the weekends he polished it lovingly and then took his wife and pretty little daughter for a drive.
    Elsie was the apple of her parents' eyes. She had a mop of yellow curls, lively blue eyes with exquisitely long curling lashes, and a smile that disarmed even the most curmudgeonly. Needless to say, she was the belle of the infants' class at Bent village school and was accompanied to and from that establishment by a bevy of small admirers.
    Her first proposal of marriage came when she was seven. It came from the shabbiest of her escorts, whose nose was constantly wet, despite a rag pinned to his dirty jersey, and whose attentions had long been deplored by Mrs Parker. Elsie turned him down promptly, but gave him one of her heart-turning smiles as she did so, for she was a kind child.
    It was an experience which was to occur many times in the future, and as time went on Elsie was to learn many refinements in the art of rejecting a suitor. But, as a first attempt and for one of such tender years, the present rejection