“Wouldn’t it be rather a trying time for you later on,” asked Clovis, “when the predictions began to ‘lack confirmation’?”

“The thing would be,” said Vera, “to arrange your forecast so that it couldn’t go very far wrong. I should begin with the prediction that the vicar would preach a moving New Year sermon from a text in Colossians; he has always done so since I can remember, and at his time of life men dislike change. Then one could safely foretell for the month of January that ‘more than one well-known family in this neighbourhood will be faced with a serious financial outlook which, however, will not develop into actual crisis.’ Every other head of a family down here discovers about that time of year that his household is living far beyond its income, and that severe retrenchment will be necessary. For April or May or thereabouts I should hint that one of the Dibcuster girls would make the happiest choice of her life. There are eight of them, and it’s really time that one of the family married or went on the stage or took to writing worldly novels.”