This was news to Mrs Polsue, and it did not please her at all.  Her own bow-window enfiladed the Bank entrance (as well as that of the Three Pilchards by the Quay-head), and so gave her a marked advantage over her friend.  To speak in military phrase, her conjectures upon other folks’ business were fed by a double line of communication.

“Well, my dear, you won’t pry on me going in and out there,” she answered tartly, with a sniff.  “Whenever I wish to withdraw some of my balance, to invest it, I send for Mr Pamphlett, and he calls on me and advises—­I am bound to say—­always most politely.”

But here Miss Oliver put in her shot. (And Mrs Polsue indeed should have been warier:  for the pair were tried combatants.  But a tendency to lose her temper, and, losing it, to speak in haste, was ever her fatal weakness.)

“Why; of course, . . . and that accounts for it,” Miss Oliver murmured.

  “Accounts for what?”

“Oh, nothing. . . .  There was a visitor here last summer—­I forget her name, but she used to go about making water-colours in a mushroom hat you might have bought for sixpence—­quite a simple good creature:  and one day, drinking tea at the Minister’s, she raised quite a laugh by being so much concerned over your health.  She said she’d seen the doctor calling at your house almost every day with a little black bag, and made sure there must have been an operation.  She mistook Mr Pamphlett for the doctor, if you ever heard tell of such simple-mindedness.”

“WHAT?”

“And the awkward part of it was,” Miss Oliver continued in a musing voice, searching her memory—­“the awkward part was, poor Mrs Pamphlett’s being present.”

“And you never told me, Cherry Oliver, until this moment!” exclaimed the widow.

“One doesn’t go about repeating every little trifle. . . .  And, for that matter, Mrs Pamphlett was just as much amused as everybody else.  ‘Well, the bare idea!’ she cried out.  ’I must speak to Pamphlett about this!  And Mary-Martha Polsue, of all women!’ These were her very words.  But of course one had to say something to explain to the other innocent woman and stop her running on.  So I told who you were; and that, as everybody knew, you were a well-to-do woman, and no doubt would feel a desire to consult your banker oftener than the most of us.”

“If you had money of your own, Cherry Oliver, you’d know how vulgar it feels to have the thing paraded like that.”

“But I haven’t,” said Miss Oliver cheerfully.  “And, anyway, you weren’t there, and I did my best for you. . . .  Well, now, I’m glad sure enough to know from you that ’tis vulgar to make much of your wealth, and I’ll remember it against the time my ship comes home. . . .  Somebody did explain—­now I come to think of it—­that maybe you’d be all the more dependent on Pamphlett’s advice, seein’ that you hadn’t been used to handle money before you were married, and it all came from your husband.” ("There!  And I don’t think she’ll mention my cherry ribbon again in a hurry,” thought Miss Oliver.)