It had been arranged that the Lark Rise family should have dinner at Ethel and Alma’s home, not because her parents happened to be the most prosperous of their Candleford kin, but because their house came first as they entered the town. Afterwards they were to go on to see another family of cousins. Laura thought her mother would have preferred to go there at once, for, when their arrangements had been discussed at home, she had said something about hating a lot of fuss and show-off, and that money wasn’t everything, though some folks who had plenty might think so. “But,” she had concluded, “they are your relations, not mine, and I expect you understand them better than I do. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t get on to politics with James, like you did at our wedding. If you two talked till you were black in the face you’d never agree, so what’s the good of arguing;” and her husband had promised, quite meekly for him, that he would not be the first to bring up the subject.

Candleford seemed a very large and grand place to Laura, with its several streets meeting in a square where there were many large shop windows, with the blinds drawn because it was Sunday, and a doctor’s house with a red lamp over the gate, and a church with a tall spire, and women and girls in light summer frocks and men in smart suits and white straw, boater-shaped hats.

But they were pulling-up at a tall white house set back on a little green with a chestnut tree supporting scaffold poles and ladders and a sign which informed the public that James Dowland, Builder and Contractor, was ready and competent to undertake “Constructions, Renovations, and Sanitary Work. Estimates Free.”