That evening Grace made one more trial to procure a little comfort in her own affairs. In the dark low parlour of the cottage, where she had lived for the last three months, with only Miss Patch and a deaf old woman for company and comfort, she sat by the fire and stitched hard, to abide her opportunity. At the corner of the table sat the good Miss Patch, with her spectacles on, and occasionally nodding over her favourite author, Ezekiel.

It was impossible for anybody to look at Miss Patch, and believe in anything against her high integrity. That lofty nose, and hard-set mouth, and the fine abstracted yet benevolent gaze of those hollow grey eyes, were enough to show that here was a lady of strict moral principle and high sense of duty. Incorruptible and grandly honest, but prickly as a hedgehog with prejudice, she could not be driven into any evil course, and required no leading into what she thought the right one. And the right course to her was always the simplest of all things to discover. Because it was that which led most directly to the glory of God at the expense of man. Anything that would smite down pride, and overthrow earthly schemes, and abase the creature before the Creator—that to her mind was the thing commanded; and if it combined therewith a cut at "papal arrogance," and priestly influence, then the command was as delightful as it was imperative.

This tall and very clear-minded lady was, by an in and out sort of way, related to Squire Oglander. She called him her "brother;" and the Squire once (to comfort her in a vile toothache) had gone so far as to call her his "sister." Still that, to his mind, was a piece of flattery, not to be remembered when the tooth was stopped;—from no pride on his part; but because of his ever-abiding execration of her father—the well-known Captain Patch.

Captain Patch was the man who married the last Squire Oglander's second wife, that is to say, our good Squire's stepmother, after the lady had despatched her first husband, by uneasy stages, to a better world. Captain Patch took her for her life-interest under the Oglander settlement; and sterling friends of his declared him much too cheap at the money. But the Oglanders took quite the contrary view, and hated his name while he drew their cash. Yet the Captain proceeded to have a large family, of whom this Hannah Patch was the eldest.

A godly father (as a general rule) has godless children; and happily the converse of that rule holds true. The children of a godless father (scared by the misery they have seen), being acquitted of the fifth commandment, frequently go back to the first. And so it befell with almost all of that impious fellow's family. Nevertheless the Squire, believing in the "commandment with promise," as well as the denunciation at the end of the second, kept himself clear of the Patches, so far as good manners and kindness permitted him, Miss Patch, knowing how good she was, had keenly resented this prejudice after vainly endeavouring to beat it down. Also she felt—not ill-will—but still a melancholy forgiveness, and uneasiness about the present position of Grace's poor mother, who had died in her sins, without any apology to Miss Patch.

However, put all these things as one may (according to constitution), this lady was very good in her way, and desired to make all others good. There was not one faulty point about her, so far as she could discover it; and her rule of conduct was to judge her own doings by a higher standard than was to be hoped for of any other person. Therefore of course, for other persons she could judge what was right and godly infinitely better than they could.

"Oh, Aunty," said Grace, by way of coaxing, having found this of good service ere now; "Aunty, don't you wish it was tea-time now?"

"All meals come in their proper season. We should be grateful for them; but not greedy."

"Oh, but, Aunty, you would not call it greedy to be hungry, I should hope. And you would be so hungry, if you only knew. Ah, but you won't get me to tell you though. I have always been celebrated for making them. And this time I have quite surpassed myself. Now, how much will you offer me to tell you what it is?"

"Grace, you are frivolous!" Miss Patch answered, yet with a slight inclination of her nose towards the brown kitchen where the wood-fire burned. "If our food is wholesome, and vouchsafed in proportion to our daily wants, we should lift up our hearts and be thankful. To let our minds dwell upon that which is a bodily question only, tends to degrade them, and leads us to confound the true end—the glory of our Maker—with the means to that end, which are vulgarly called victuals."

"Very well, Aunty, we will do with bread and butter. I only made my Sally Lunns for you; and if they degrade your mind, I will give them to Margery Daw, or the cottage with ten children, down at the bottom of the wood. What a treat they will have, to be sure, with them!"

"Not so, my dear! If you made them for me, I should fail in my duty if I refused them. We are ordered to be kind and courteous and long-suffering towards one another. And I know that you make them particularly well. They are quite unfit for people in that lower sphere of life. It would be quite sinful to tempt them so! They would puff them up with vanity, and worldliness, and pride. But if you insist upon my tasting them, my dear, in justice to your work I think that you should see to the toasting. Poor Mrs. Daw smokes everything."

"Of course she does. But I never meant to let her do them, Aunty. Only I wanted to be quite sure first that you would oblige me by tasting them."

"My dear, I will do so, as soon as you please." The good lady shut up Ezekiel, and waited. In a few minutes back came Grace, with all things done to a nicety, each against each contending hotly whether the first human duty were to drink choice tea or to eat Sally Lunns. Miss Patch always saw her course marked out by special guidance, and devoutly thus was enabled to act simultaneously.

Grace took a little bit now and again to criticise her own handiwork, while with her bright eyes she watched the relaxing of the rigid countenance. "My dear," said Miss Patch, "they are excellent! and they do the greatest credit to your gifts! To let any talent lie idle is sinful. You might make a few every day, my dear."

"To be sure I will, Aunty, with the greatest pleasure. I do love to do anything that reminds me of my dear father! Oh, Aunty, will you tell me something?"

"Yes, Grace, anything you ask aright. Young girls, of course, must submit to those whose duty it is to guide them. Undue curiosity must be checked, as leading to perverse naughtiness. The principle, or want of principle, inculcated now by bad education, can lead to nothing else but ruin and disgrace. How different all was when I was young! My gallant and spirited father, well known as a brave defender of his country, would never have dreamed of allowing us to be inquisitive as to his whereabouts. But all things are subverted now; filial duty is a thing unknown."

"Oh, but, Aunty, of course we never pretend to be half as good as you were. Still I don't think that you can conclude that I do not love my dear father, because I am not one bit afraid of him."

"Don't cry, child. It is foolish and weak, and rebellious against Divine wisdom. All things are ordered for our good."

"Then crying must be ordered for our good, or we should be able to help it, ma'am. But you can't call it 'crying,' when I do just what I do. It is such a long and lonely time; and I never have been away more than a week at a time from my darling father, until now; and now it is fifteen weeks and five days since I saw him! Oh, it is dreadful to think of!"

"Very well, my dear, it may be fifty weeks, or fifty years, if the Lord so wills. Self-command is one of the very first lessons that all human beings must learn."

"Yes, I know all that. And I do command myself to the very utmost. You know that you praised me—quite praised me—yesterday; which is a rare thing for you to do. What did you say then? Please not to retract, and spoil the whole beauty of your good word."

"No, my dear child, you need not be afraid. Whenever you deserve praise, you shall have it. You saw an old sack with the name of 'Beckley' on it, and although you were silly enough to set to and kiss it, as if it were your father, you positively did not shed one tear!"

"For which I deserve a gold medal at least. I should like to have it for my counterpane; but you sent it away most ruthlessly. Now, I want to know, Aunty, how it came to be here—miles, leagues, longitudes, away from darling Beckley?"

Miss Patch looked a little stern again at this. She perceived that her duty was to tell some stories, in a case of this kind, wherein the end justified the means so paramountly. Still every new story which she had to tell seemed to make her more cross than the one before; whether from accumulated adverse score, or from the increased chances of detection.

"Sacks arrive and sacks depart," she answered, as if laying down a dogma, "according to the decrees of Providence. Ever since the time of Joseph, sacks have had their special mission. Our limited intelligence cannot follow the mundane pilgrimage of sacks."

"No, Aunty, of course, they get stolen so! But this particular sack I saw had on it the name of a good honest man, one of the very best men in Beckley, Zacchary Cripps, the Carrier. His name did bring things to my mind so—all the parcels and good nice things that he carries as if they were made of glass; and the way my father looks over the hedge to watch for his cart at the turn of the lane; and his pretty sister Etty sitting up as if she didn't want to be looked at; and old Dobbin splashing along, plod, plod; and our Mary setting her cap at him vainly; and the way he goes rubbing his boots, as if he would have every one of the nails out; and then dearest father calling out, 'Have you brought us Her Majesty's new crown, Cripps?' and Cripps, putting up his hand like that, and grinning as if it was a grand idea, and then slyly peeping round where the beer-jug hangs—oh, Aunty, shall I ever see it all again?"

"Well, Grace, you will lose very little if you don't. It is one of my brother's worst failings that he gives away fermented liquor to the lower orders inconsiderately. It encourages them in the bad habits to which they are only too prone, even when discouraged."

"Oh no, Aunty! Cripps is the soberest of men. And he does take his beer with such a relish, it is quite a treat to see him. Oh, if I could only see his old cart now, jogging along, like a man with one prong!"

"Grace! Miss Oglander! Your metaphor is of an excessively vulgar description!"

"Is it, Aunty? Then I am very sorry. I am sure I didn't mean any harm at all. Only I was thinking of the way a certain one-legged fiddler walks—but, Aunty, all this is so frivolous! With all the solemn duties around us, Aunty——"

"Yes, my dear, I do wish you would think a little more of them. Every day I do my best. Your nature is not more corrupt than must be, with all who have the sad phronema sarkos; but unhappily you always exhibit, both in word and action, something so—I will not use at all a harsh word for it—something so sadly unsolemn."

"What can I do, Aunt? It really is not my fault. I try for five minutes together to be solemn. And then there comes something or other—how can I tell how?—that proves too much for me. My father used to love to see me laugh. He said it was quite the proper thing to do. And he was so funny (when he had no trouble) that without putting anything into anybody's head, he set them all off laughing. Aunty, you would have been amused to hear him. Quite in the quiet time, almost in the evening, I have known my father make such beautiful jokes, without thinking of them, that I often longed for the old horn lanthorn, to see all the people laughing. Even you would laugh, dear Aunty, if you only heard him."

"The laughter of fools is the crackling of thorns. Grace, you are nothing but a very green goose. Even a stray lamb would afford me better hopes. But knock at the wall with the poker, my dear, that Margery Daw may come in to prayers."