We genteel folk regarded them as a plague-spot
in the midst of us.
I remember the scandal when the troops first came in August, 1914,
to Wellingsford--a scandal put a summary end to, after a
fortnight's grinning amazement at our country morals, by the
troops themselves. Tufton had married into an undesirable
community.
"We're wasting time," said Betty.
So Marigold put me into the back of the car and mounted into the
front seat by Betty, and we started.
Flowery End was the poetic name of the mean little row of red-
brick houses inhabited exclusively by Mrs. Tufton and her
colleagues at the mills. To get to it you turn off the High Street
by the Post Office, turn to the right down Avonmore Avenue, and
then to the left. There you find Flowery End, and, fifty yards
further on, the main road to Godbury crosses it at right angles.
Betty, who lived on the Godbury Road, was quite familiar with
Flowery End. Mid-June did its best to justify the name. Here and
there, in the tiny patches of front garden, a tenant tried to help
mid-June by cultivating wall-flowers and geraniums and snapdragon
and a rose or two; but the majority cared as much for the beauty
of mid-June as for the cleanliness of their children,--an
unsightly brood, with any slovenly rags about their bodies, and
the circular crust of last week's treacle on their cheeks.
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