In such wise, under the silent benediction of the lost loving dead, the long-deserted old Manor received back the sole daughter of its ancestry to that protection which we understand, or did understand at one time in our history, as 'Home.' Home was once a safe and sacred institution in England. There seemed no likelihood of its ever being supplanted by the public restaurant. That it has, in a great measure, been so supplanted, is no advantage to the country, and that many women, young and old, prefer to be seen in gregarious over-dressed hordes, taking their meals in Piccadilly eating-houses, rather than essay the becoming grace of a simple and sincere hospitality to their friends in their own homes, is no evidence of their improved taste or good breeding. Abbot's Manor was in every sense 'Home' in the old English sense of the word. Its ancient walls, hallowed by long tradition, formed a peaceful and sweet harbour of rest for a woman's life,—and the tranquil dignity of her old-world surroundings with all the legends and memories they awakened, soon had a beneficial effect on Maryllia's impressionable temperament, which, under her aunt's 'social' influence, had been more or less chafed and uneasy. She began to feel at peace with herself and all the world,—while the relief she experienced at having deliberately severed herself by both word and act from the undesired attentions of a too-persistent and detested lover in the person of Lord Roxmouth, future Duke of Ormistonne, was as keen and pleasurable as that of a child who has run away from school. She was almost confident that the fact of her having thrown off her aunt's protection together with all hope of inheriting her aunt's wealth, would be sufficient to keep him away from her for the future. "For it is Aunt Emily's money he wants—not me;" she said to herself—"He doesn't care a jot about me personally—any woman will do, provided she has the millions. And when he knows I've given up the millions, and don't intend ever to have the millions, he'll leave me alone. And he'll go over to America in search of somebody else—some proud daughter of oil or pork or steel!—and what a blessing that will be!"

Meanwhile, such brief excitement as had been caused in St. Rest by the return of 'th' owld Squire's gel' and by the almost simultaneous dismissal of Oliver Leach, had well-nigh abated. A new agent had been appointed, and though Leach had left the immediate vicinity, having employment on Sir Morton Pippitt's lands, he had secured a cottage for himself in the small outlying hamlet of Badsworth. He also undertook some work for the Reverend 'Putty' Leveson in assisting him to form an entomological collection for the private museum at Badsworth Hall. Mr. Leveson had a singular fellow-feeling for insects,—he studied their habits, and collected specimens of various kinds in bottles, or 'pinned' them on cardboard trays,—he was an interested observer of the sprightly manners practised by the harvest-bug, and the sagacious customs of the ruminating spider,—as well as the many surprising and agreeable talents developed by the common flea. Leach's virulent hatred of Maryllia Vancourt was not lessened by the apparently useful and scientific nature of the employment he had newly taken up under the guidance of his reverend instructor,—and whenever he caught a butterfly and ran his murderous pin through its quivering body at Leveson's bland command, he thought of her, and wished vindictively that she might perish as swiftly and utterly as the winged lover of the flowers. Every small bright thing in Nature's garden that he slew and brought home as trophy, inspired him with the same secret fierce desire. The act of killing a beautiful or harmless creature gave him pleasure, and he did not disguise it from himself. The Reverend 'Putty' was delighted with his aptitude, and with the many valuable additions he made to the 'specimen' cards and bottles, and the two became constant companions in their search for fresh victims among the blossoming hedgerows and fields. St. Rest, as a village, was only too glad to be rid of Leach's long detested presence to care anything at all as to his further occupations or future career,—and only Bainton kept as he said 'an eye on him.'

Bainton was a somewhat curious personage,—talkative as he showed himself on most occasions, he was both shrewd and circumspect; no stone was more uncommunicative than he when he chose. In his heart he had set Maryllia Vancourt as second to none save his own master, John Walden,—her beauty and grace, her firm action with regard to the rescue of the 'Five Sisters,' and her quick dismissal of Oliver Leach, had all inspired him with the most unbounded admiration and respect, and he felt that he now had a double interest in life,—the 'Passon'—and the 'lady of the Manor.' But he found very little opportunity to talk about his new and cherished theme of Miss Vancourt and Miss Vancourt's many attractions to Walden,—for John always 'shut him up' on the subject with quite a curt and peremptory decision whenever be so much as mentioned her name. Which conduct on the part of one who was generally so willing to hear and patient to listen, somewhat surprised Bainton.

"For," he argued—"there ain't much doin' in the village,—we ain't always 'on the go'—an' when a pretty face comes among us, surely it's worth looking at an' pickin' to pieces as 'twere. But Passon's that sharp on me when I sez any little thing wot might be interestin' about the lady, that I'm thinkin' he's got out o' the habit o' knowin' when a face is a male or a female one, which is wot often happens to bacheldors when they gits fixed like old shrubs in one pertikler spot o' ground. Now I should a' said he'd a' bin glad to 'ear of somethin' new an' oncommon as 'twere,—he likes it in the way o' flowers, an' why not in the way o' wimmin? But Passon ain't like other folk—he don't git on with wimmin nohow—an' the prettier they are the more he seems skeered off them."

But such opinions as Bainton entertained concerning his master, he kept to himself, and having once grasped the fact that any mention of Miss Vancourt's ways or Miss Vancourt's looks appeared to displease rather than to entertain the Reverend John, he avoided the subject altogether. This course of action on his part, if the truth must be told, was equally annoying to Walden, who was in the curious mental condition of wishing to know what he declined to hear.

For the rest, the village generally grew speedily accustomed to the presence of the mistress of the Manor. She had fulfilled her promise of paying a visit to Josey Letherbarrow, and had sat with the old man in his cottage, talking to him for the better part of two hours. Rumour asserted that she had even put the kettle on the fire for him, and had made his tea. Josey himself was reticent,—and beyond the fact that he held up his head with more dignity, and showed a touch of more conscious superiority in his demeanour, he did not give himself away by condescending to narrate any word of the lengthy interview that had taken place between himself and 'th' owld Squire's little gel.' One remarkable thing was noticed by the villagers and commented upon,—Miss Vancourt had now passed two Sundays in their midst, and had never once attended church. Her servants were always there at morning service, but she herself was absent. This occasioned much whispering and head-shaking in the little community, and one evening the subject was openly discussed in the bar-room of the 'Mother Huff' by a group of rustic worthies whose knowledge of matters theological and political was, by themselves, considered profound. Mrs. Buggins had started the conversation, and Mrs. Buggins was well known to be a lady both pious and depressing. She presided over her husband's 'public' with an air of meek resignation, not unmixed with sorrowful protest,—she occasionally tasted the finer cordials in the bar-room, and was often moved to gentle tears at the excellence of their flavour,—she had a chronic 'stitch in the side,' and a long smooth pale yellow countenance from which the thin grey hair was combed well back from the temples in the frankly unbecoming fashion affected by the provincial British matron. She begun her remarks by plaintively opining that "it was a very strange thing not to see Miss Vancourt at church, on either of the Sundays that had passed since her return—very strange! Perhaps she was 'High'? Perhaps she had driven into Riversford to attend the 'processional' service of the Reverend Francis Anthony?"

"Perhaps she ain't done nothing of the sort!"—growled a thick-set burly farmer, who with a capacious mug of ale before him was sucking at his pipe with as much zeal as a baby at its bottle—"Ef you cares for my 'pinion, which, m'appen you doan't, she's neither Low nor 'Igh. She's no Seck. If she h'longed to a Seck, she wouldn't be readin' on a book under the Five Sisters last Sunday marnin' when the bells was a-ringin' for church time. I goes past 'er, an' I sez 'Marnin,' mum!' an' she looks up smilin'-like, an' sez she: 'Good- marnin!' Nice day, isn't it?' 'Splendid day, mum,' sez I, an' she went on readin', an' I went on a walkin'. I sez then, and I sez now, she ain't no Seck!"

"Example," sighed Mrs. Buggins, "is better than precept. It would be more decent if the lady showed herself in church as a lesson to others,—if she did so more lost sheep might follow!"

"Hor-hor-hor!" chuckled Bainton, from a corner of the room—"Don't you worrit yourself, Missis Buggins, 'bout no lost sheep! Sheep allus goes where there's somethin' to graze upon,—leastways that's my 'speriemce, an' if there ain't no grazin' there ain't no sheep! An' them as grazes on Passon Walden, gittin' out of 'im all they can to 'elp 'em along, wouldn't go to church, no more than Miss Vancourt do, if they didn't know wot a man 'e is to be relied on in times o' trouble, an' a reg'lar 'usband to the parish in sickness an' in 'elth, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do 'im part. Miss Vancourt don't want nothin' out of 'im as all we doos, an' she kin show 'er independence ef she likes to by stayin' away from church when she fancies, an' readin' books instead of 'earin' sermons,—there ain't no harm in that."

"I'm not so sure that I agree with you, Mr. Bainton,"—said a stout, oily-looking personage, named Netlips, the grocer and 'general store' dealer of the village, a man who was renowned in the district for the profundity and point of his observations at electoral meetings, and for the entirely original manner in which he 'used' the English language; "Public worship is a necessary evil. It is a factor in vulgar civilisations. Without it, the system of religious politics would fall into cohesion,—absolute cohesion!" And he rapped his fist on the table with a smartness that made his hearers jump. "At the last meeting I addressed in this division, I said we must support the props. The aristocracy must bear them on their shoulders. If your Squire stays away from church, he may be called a heathen with propriety, though a Liberal. And why? Because he makes public exposure of himself as a heathen negative! He is bound to keep up the church factor in the community. Otherwise he runs straight aground on Cohesion."

This oratorical outburst on the part of Mr. Netlips was listened to with respectful awe and admiration.

"Ay, ay!" said Roger Buggins, who as 'mine host' stood in his shirt sleeves at the entrance of his bar, surveying his customers and mentally counting up their reckonings—"Cohesion would never do— cohesion government would send the country to pieces. You're right, Mr. Netlips,—you're right! Props must be kep' up!"

"I don't see no props in goin' to church,"—said Dan Ridley, the little working tailor of the village—"I goes because I likes Mr. Walden, but if there was a man in the pulpit I didn't like, I'd stop away. There's a deal too many wolves in sheep's clothing getting ordained in the service o' the Lord, an' I don't blame Miss Vancourt if so be she takes time to find out the sort o' man Mr. Walden is before settin' under him as 'twere. She can say prayers an' read 'em too in her own room, an' study the Bible all right without goin' to church. Many folks as goes to church reg'lar are downright mean lyin' raskills—and don't never read their Bibles at all. Mebbe they does as much harm as what Mr. Netlips calls Cohesion, though I don't myself purfess to understand Government language, it bein' too deep for me."

Mr. Netlips smiled condescendingly, and nodded as one who should say—'You do well, my poor fellow, to be humble in my presence!'— and buried his nose in his tankard of ale.

"Mebbe Cohesion's got hold o' my red cow"—said the burly farmer who had spoken before—"For she's as ailin' as ever she was, an' if I lose her, I loses a bit o' my livin.' An' that's what I sez an' 'olds by, no church-goin' seems to 'elp us in a bit o' trouble, an' it ain't decent or Christian like, so it 'pears, to pray to the Almighty for the savin' of a cow. I asked Passon Walden if 'twould be right, for the cow's as valuable to me as ever my wife was when she was alive, if not more, an' he sez quite pleasant-like—'Well no, Mister Thorpe, I think it best not to make any sort of special prayer for the poor beast, but just do all you can for it, and leave the rest to Providence. A cow is worldly goods, you see—and we're not quite justified in praying to be allowed to keep our worldly goods.' 'Ain't we!' I sez—'Is that a fact? He smiled and said it was. So I thanked him and comed away. But I've been thinkin' it over since, an' I sez to myself—ef we ain't to pray for keepin' an' 'avin' our worldly goods, wot 'ave we got to pray for?"

"Oh Mr. Thorpe!" ejaculated Mrs. Buggins, almost tearfully—"It is not this world but the next, that we must think of! We must pray for our souls!"

"Well, marm, I ain't got a 'soul' wot I knows on—an' as for the next world, if there ain't no cattle farmin' there, I reckon I'll be out o' work. Do you count on keepin' a bar in the 'eavenly country?"

A loud guffaw went the round of the room, and Mrs. Buggins gasped with horror.

"Oh, Roger!" she murmured, addressing her portly spouse, who at once took up the argument.

"You goes too fur—you goes too fur, Mister Thorpe!" he said severely—"There ain't no keepin' bars nor farmin' carried on in the next world, nor marrying nor givin' in marriage. We be all as the angels there."

"A nice angel you'll make too, Mr. Buggins!" said Farmer Thorpe, as he sent his tankard to be refilled,—"Lord! We won't know you!"

Again the laugh went round, and Mrs. Buggins precipitately retired to her 'inner parlour' there to recover from the shock occasioned to her religious feelings by the irreverent remarks of her too matter- of-fact customer. Meanwhile Dan Ridley, the tailor, had again reverted to the subject of Miss Vancourt.

"There's one thing about her comin' to church,"—he said; "If so be as she did come it 'ud do us all good, for she's real pleasant to look at. I've seen her a many times in the village."

"Ah, so have I!" chorussed two or three more men.

"She's been in to see Adam Frost's children an' she gave Baby Hippolyta a bag o' sweeties,"—said Bainton. "An' she's called at the schoolhouse, but Miss Eden, she worn't in an' Susie Prescott saw her, an' Susie was that struck that she 'adn't a wurrd to say, so she tells us, an' Miss Vancourt she went to old Josey Letherbarrow's straight away an' there she stayed iver so long. She ain't called at our house yet."

"Which 'ouse might you be a-meanin', Tummas?" queried Farmer Thorpe, with a slow grin—"Your own or your measter's?"

"When we speaks in the plural we means not one, but two,"—rejoined Bainton with dignity. "An' when I sez 'our' I means myself an' Passon, which Miss Vancourt ain't as yet left her card on Passon. He went up in a great 'urry one afternoon when he knowed she was out,— he knowed it, 'cos I told 'im as 'ow I'd seen her gallopin' by on that mare of hers which, they calls Cleopatra-an' away 'e run like a March 'are, an' he ups to the Manor and down again, an' sez he, laughin' like: 'I've done my dooty by the lady' sez he—'I've left my card!' That was three days ago, an' there ain't been no return o' the perliteness up to the present—"

Here he broke off and began to drink his ale, as a small dapper man entered the bar-room with a brisk step and called for 'a glass of home-brewed,' looking round on those assembled with a condescending smile. All of them knew him as Jim Bennett, Miss Vancourt's groom.

"Well, mates!" he said with a sprightly air of familiarity—"All well and hearty?"

"As yourself, Mr. Bennett,"—replied Roger Buggins, acting as spokesman for the rest, and personally serving him with the foaming draught he had ordered. "Which, we likewise trusts your lady is well?"

"My lady enjoys the hest of health, thank you!" said Bennett, with polite gravity. And tossing off the contents of his glass, he signified by an eloquent gesture and accompanying wink, that he was 'good for another.'

"We was just a-sayin' as you come in, Mr. Bennett," observed Dan
Ridley, "that we'd none of us seen your lady at church yet on
Sundays, Mebbe she ain't of our 'persuasion' as they sez, or mehbe
she goes into Riversford, preferrin' 'Igh services—-"

Bennett smiled a superior smile, and leaning easily against the bar, crossed his legs and surveyed the company generally with a compassionate air.

"I suppose it's quite a business down here,—goin' to church, eh?" he queried—"Sort of excitement like—only bit of fun you've got— helps to keep you all alive! That's the country way, but Lord bless you!—in town we're not taking any!"

Bainton looked up,—and Mr. Netlips loosened his collar and lifted his head, as though preparing himself for another flow of 'cohesion' eloquence. Farmer Thorpe turned his bull-neck slowly round, and brought his eyes to bear on the speaker.

"How d'ye make that out, Mr. Bennett?" he demanded. "Doan't ye sarve the A'mighty same in town as in country?"

"Not a bit of it!" replied Bennett airily—"You're a long way behind the times, Mr. Thorpe!—you are indeed, beggin' your pardon for sayin' so! The 'best' people have given up the Almighty altogether, owing to recent scientific discoveries. They've taken to the Almighty Dollar instead which no science can do away with. And Sundays aren't used any more for church-going, except among the middle-class population,—they're just Bridge days with OUR set— Bridge lunches, Bridge suppers,—every Sunday's chock full of engagements to 'Bridge,' right through the 'season.'"

"That's cards, ain't it?" enquired Dan Ridley.

"Just so! Harmless cards!" rejoined Bennett—"Only you can chuck away a few thousands or so on 'em if you like!"

Mr. Netlips here pushed aside his emptied ale-glass and raised his fat head unctuously out of his stiff shirt-collar.

"Are we to understand," he began ponderously, "that Miss Vancourt is addicted to this fashion of procrastinating the Lord's Day?"

Bennett straightened his dapper figure suddenly.

"Now don't you put yourself out, Mr. Netlips, don't, that's a good feller!" he said in sarcastically soothing tones—"There's no elections going on just at present—when there is you can bring your best leg foremost, and rant away for all you're worth! My lady don't gamble, if that's what you mean,—though she's always with the swagger set, and likely so to remain. But you keep up your spirits!- -your groceries 'ull be paid for all right!—she don't run up no bills—so don't you fear, cards or no cards! And as for procrastinating the Lord's Day, whatever that may be, I could name to you the folks what does worse than play Bridge on Sundays. And who are they? Why the clergymen theirselves! And how does they do worse? Why by tellin' lies as fast as they can stick! They says we're all going to heaven if we're good,—and they don't know nothing about it,—and we're all going to hell if we're bad, and they don't know nothing about that neither! I tell you, as I told you at first, in town we've got beyond all that stuff—we're just not taking any!"

He paused, and there was a deep silence, while he drank off his second glass of ale. The thoughts of every man present were apparently too deep for words.

"You're a smart chap!" said Bainton at last, breaking the mystic spell and rising to take his leave—"An' I don't want to argify with ye, for I'spect you're about right in what you sez about Sunday ways in town—but I tell ye what, young feller!—you've got to 'ave a deal o' patience an' a deal o' pity for they poor starveling sinners wot gits boxed up in cities an' never ain't got no room to look at the sky, or see the wide fields with all the daisies blowin' open to the sun. No wonder they're so took up wi' their scinetific muddlins over worms an' microbes an' sich-like, as to 'ave forgot what the Almighty is doin' in the workin' o' the Universe,—but it's onny jest like poor prisiners in a cell wot walks up an' down, up an' down, countin' the stones in the wall with scinetific multiplication-like, an' 'splainin' to their poor lonely selves as how many stones makes a square foot, an' so many square feet makes a square yard, an' on they goes a-walkin' their mis'able little round an' countin' their mis'able little sums, an' all the time just outside the prison the flowers is all bloomin' wild an' the birds singin', an' the blue sky over it all with God smilin' behind it. That's 'ow 'tis, Mr. Bennett!" and Bainton looked into the lining of his cap as was his wont before he put it on his head—"I believe all you say right enough, an' it don't put me out nohow—I've seen too much o' natur to be shook off my 'old on the Almighty—for there's no worm wot ain't sure of a rose or some kind o' flower an' fruit somewhere, though m'appen the poor blind thing don't know where to find it. It's case o' leadin' on, an' guidin' beyond our knowledge, Mr. Bennett,—an' that's wot Passon Walden tells us. HE don't bother us wi' no 'hows' nor 'whys' nor 'wherefores'—he says we can FEEL God with us in our daily work, an' so we can, if we've a mind to! Daily work and common things shows Him to us,—why look there!"— here he pulled from his pocket a small paper-bag, and opening it, showed some dry loose seed—"There ain't nothin' commoner than that! That's pansy seed—a special stock too,—well now, if you didn't know how common it is, wouldn't it seem a miracle as wonderful as any in the Testymen, that out o' that handful o' dust like, the finest flowers of purple an' yellow will come?—ay! some o' them two to three inches across, an' every petal like velvet an' silk! If so be you don't b'lieve in a God, Mr. Bennett, owin' to town opinions, you try the gardenin' business! That'll make a man of ye! I allus sez if Adam had stuck to the gardenin' business an' left the tailorin' trade alone we'd have all been in Eden now!"

His eyes twinkled, as glancing round the company, he saw that his words had made an impression and awakened a responsive smile—"Good- night t'ye!" And touching Bennett on the shoulder in passing, he added: "You come an' see me, my lad, when you feels like goin' a bit in the scinetific line! Mebbe I can tell ye a few pints wot the learned gentlemen in London don't know. Anyway, a little church- goin' under Passon Walden won't do you no 'arm, nor your lady neither, if she's what I takes her for, which is believin' her to be all good as wimmin goes. An' when Passon warms to his work an' tells ye plain as 'ow everything's ordained for the best, an' as 'ow every flower's a miracle of the Lord, an' every bird's song a bit o' the Lord's own special music, it 'eartens ye up an' makes ye more 'opeful o' your own poor mis'able self—it do reely now!"

With another friendly pat on the groom's shoulder, and a cheery smile, Bainton passed out, and left the rest of the company in the 'Mother Huff' tap-room solemnly gazing upon one another.

"He speaks straight, he do," said Farmer Thorpe, "An' he ain't no canter,—he's just plain Tummas, an' wot he sez he means."

"Here's to his 'elth,—a game old boy!" said Bennett good- humouredly, ordering another glass of ale; "It's quite a treat to meet a man like him, and I shan't be above owning that he's got a deal of right on his side. But what he says ain't Orthodox Church teaching."

"Mebbe not," said Dan Kidley, "but it's Passon Walden's teachin', an' if you ain't 'eard Passon yet, Mister Bennett, I'd advise ye to go next Sunday. An' if your lady 'ud make up her mind to go too just for once—-"

Bennett gave an expressive gesture.

"She won't go—you may depend on that!" he said; "She's had too much of parsons as it is. Why Mrs. Fred—that's her American aunt—was regular pestered with 'em coming beggin' of her for their churches and their windows and their schools and their infants and their poor, lame, blind, sick of all sorts, as well as for theirselves. D'rectly they knew she was a millionaire lady' they 'adn't got but one thought—how to get some of the millions out of her. There was three secretaries kept when we was in London, and they'd hardly time for bite nor sup with all the work they 'ad, refusin' scores of churches and religious folks all together. Miss Maryllia's got a complete scare o' parsons. Whenever she see a shovel-hat coming she just flew! When she was in Paris it was the Catholics as wanted money—nuns, sisters of the poor, priests as 'ad been turned out by the Government,—and what not,—and out in America it was the Christian Scientists all the time with such a lot of tickets for lectures and fal-lals as you never saw,—then came the Spiritooalists with their seeances; and altogether the Vancourt family got to look on all sorts of religions merely as so many kinds of beggin' boxes which if you dropped money into, you went straight to the Holy-holies, and if you didn't you dropped down into the great big D's. No!—I don't think anyone need expect to see my lady at church—it's the last place she'd ever think of going to!"

This piece of information was received by his hearers with profound gravity. No one spoke, and during the uncomfortable pause Bennett gave a careless 'Good-night!'—and took his departure.

"Things is come to a pretty pass in this 'ere country," then said Mr. Netlips grandiosely, "when the woman who is merely the elevation of the man, exhibits in public a conviction to which her status is unfitted. If the lady who now possesses the Manor were under the submission of a husband, he would naturally assume the control which is govemmentally retaliative and so compel her to include the religious considerations of the minority in her communicative system!"

Farmer Thorpe looked impressed, but slightly puzzled.

"You sez fine, Mr. Netlips,—you sez fine," he observed respectfully. "Not that I altogether understands ye, but that's onny my want of book-larnin' and not spellin' through the dictionary as I oughter when I was a youngster. Howsomever I makes bold to guess wot you're drivin' at and I dessay you may be right. But I'm fair bound to own that if it worn't for Mr. Walden, I shouldn't be found in church o' Sundays neither, but lyin' flat on my back in a field wi' my face turned up to the sun, a-thinkin' of the goodness o' God, and hopin' He'd put a hand out to 'elp make the crops grow as they should do. Onny Passon he be a rare good man, and he do speak to the 'art of ye so wise-like and quiet, and that's why I goes to hear him and sez the prayers wot's writ for me to say and doos as he asks me to do. But if I'd been unfort'nit enough to live in the parish of Badsworth under that old liar Leveson, I'd a put my fist in his jelly face 'fore I'd a listened to a word he had to say! Them's my sentiments, mates!—and you can read 'em how you like, Mr. Netlips. God's in heaven we know,—but there's onny churches on earth, an' we 'as to make sure whether there's men or devils inside of 'em 'fore we goes kneelin' and grubbin' in front of 'uman idols—Good-night t'ye!"

With these somewhat disjointed remarks Farmer Thorpe strode out of the tap-room, whistling loudly to his dog as he reached the door. The heavy tramp of his departing feet echoed along the outside lane and died away, and Roger Buggins, glancing at the sheep-faced clock in the bar, opined that it was 'near closin' hour.' All the company rose and began to take their leave.

"Church or no church, Miss Vancourt's a real lady!" declared Dan Bidley emphatically—"She may have her reasons, an' good ones too, for not attending service, but she ain't no heathen, I'm sartin' sure o' that."

"You cannot argumentarially be sure of what you do not know," said Mr. Netlips, with a tight smile, buttoning on his overcoat—"A heathen is a proscription of the law, and cannot enjoy the rights of the commons."

Dan stared.

"There ain't no proscription of the law in stayin' away from church," he said—"Nobody's bound to go. Lords nor commons can't compel us."

Mr. Netlips shook his head and frowned darkly, with the air of one who could unveil a great mystery if he chose.

"Compulsion is a legal community," he said—"And while powerless to bring affluence to the Christian conscience, it culminates in the citizenship of the heathen. Miss Vancourt, as her father's daughter, should be represented by the baptized spirit, and not by the afflatus of the ungenerate! Good-night!"

Still puckering his brow into lines of mysterious suggestiveness, the learned Netlips went his way, Roger Buggins gazing after him admiringly.

"That man's reg'lar lost down 'ere,"—he observed—"He oughter ha' been in Parliament."

"Ah, so he ought!" agreed Dan Ridley—"Where's there's fog he'd a made it foggier, and where's there's no understandin' he'd a made it less understandable. I daresay he'd a bin Prime Minister in no time- -he's just the sort. They likes a good old muddler for that work— someone as has the knack o' addlin' the people's brains an' makin' them see a straight line as though'twere crooked. It keeps things quiet an' yet worrity-like—first up, then down—this way, then that way, an' never nothin' certain, but plenty o' big words rantin' round. That's Netlips all over,—it's in the shape of his 'ed,—he was born like it. I don't like his style myself,—but he'd make a grand cab-nit minister!"

"Ay, so he would!" acquiesced Buggins, as he drew the little red curtains across the windows of the tap-room and extinguished the hanging lamp—"Easy rest ye, Dan!"

"Same to you, Mr. Buggins!" responded the tailor cheerfully, as he turned out into the cool sweet dimness of the hawthorn-hedged lane in which the 'Mother Huff' stood—"I make bold to say that church or no church, Miss Vancourt's bein' at her own 'ouse 'ull be a gain an' a blessing to the village."

"Mebbe so," returned Buggins laconically,—and closing his door he barred it across for the night, while Dan Ridley, full of the half- poetic, half philosophic thoughts which the subjects of religion and religious worship frequently excite in a more or less untutored rustic mind, trudged slowly homeward.

During these days, Maryllia herself, unconscious of the remarks passed upon her as the lady of the Manor by her village neighbours, had not been idle, nor had she suffered much from depression of spirits, though, socially speaking, she was having what she privately considered in her own mind 'rather a dull time.' To begin with, everybody in the neighbourhood that was anybody in the neighbourhood, had called upon her,—and the antique oaken table in the great hall was littered with a snowy array of variously shaped bits of pasteboard, bearing names small and great,—names of old county families,—names of new mushroom gentry,—names of clergymen and their wives in profusion, and one or two modest cards with the plain 'Mr.' of the only young bachelors anywhere near for fifteen miles round. Nearly every man had a wife—"Such a pity!" commented Maryllia, when noting the fact—"One can never ask any of them to dinner without their dragons!"

Most of the callers had paid their 'duty visits' at a time of the afternoon when she was always out,—roaming over her own woods and fields, and 'taking stock' as she said, of her own possessions,—but on one or two occasions she had been caught 'in,' and this was the case when Sir Morton Pippitt, accompanied by his daughter Tabitha, Mr. Julian Adderley, and Mr. Marius Longford were announced just at the apt and fitting hour of 'five-o'clock tea.' Rising from the chair where she had negligently thrown herself to read for a quiet half hour, she set aside her book, and received those important personages with the careless ease and amiable indifference which was a 'manner familiar' to her, and which invariably succeeded in making less graceful persons than she was, feel wretchedly awkward and unhappy about the management of their hands and feet. With a smiling upward and downward glance, she mastered Sir Morton Pippitt's 'striking and jovial personality,'—his stiffly-carried upright form, large lower chest, close-shaven red face, and pleasantly clean white hair,—"The very picture of a Bone-Melter"—she thought—"He looks as if he had been boiled all over himself—quite a nice well- washed old man,"—her observant eyes flashed over the attenuated form of Julian Adderley with a sparkle of humour,—she noticed the careful carelessness of his attire, the artistic 'set' of his ruddy locks, the eccentric cut of his trousers, and the, to himself, peculiar knot of his tie.

"The poor thing wants to be something out of the common and can't quite manage it," she mentally decided, while she viewed with extreme disfavour the feline elegance affected by Mr. Marius Longford, and the sleek smile, practised by him 'for women only,' with which he blandly admitted her existence. To Miss Tabitha Pippit she offered a chair of capacious dimensions, amply provided with large down cushons, inviting her to sit down in it with a gentleness which implied kindly consideration for her years and for the fatigue she might possibly experience as a result of the drive over from Badsworth Hall,—whereat the severe spinster's chronically red nose reddened more visibly, and between her thin lips she sharply enunciated her preference for 'a higher seat,—no cushions, thank you!' Thereupon she selected the 'higher seat' for herself, in the shape of an old-fashioned music-stool, without back or arm-rest, and sat stiffly upon it like a draper's clothed dummy put up in a window for public inspection. Maryllia smiled,—she knew that kind of woman well;—and paying only the most casual attention to her for the rest of the time, returned to her own place by the open windows and began to dispense the tea, while Sir Morton Pippitt opened conversation by feigning to recall having met her some two or three years back. He was not altogether in the best of humours, the sight of his recently dismissed butler, Primmins, having upset his nerves. He knew how servants 'talked.' Who could tell what Primmins might not say in his new situation at Abbot's Manor, of his former experiences at Badsworth Hall? And so it was with a somewhat heated countenance that Sir Morton endeavoured to allude to a former acquaintance with his hostess at a Foreign Office function.

"Oh no, I don't think so," said Maryllia, lazily dropping lumps of sugar into the tea-cups—"Do you take sugar? I ought to ask, I know,—such a number of men have the gout nowadays, and they take saccharine. I haven't any saccharine,—so sorry! You do like sugar, Mr. Adderley? How nice of you!" And she smiled. "None for you, Mr. Longford? I thought not. You, Miss Pippitt? No! Everybody else, yes? That's all right! The Foreign Office? I think not, Sir Morton,—I gave up going there long ago when I was quite young. My aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, always went—you must have met her and taken her for me, I always hated a Foreign Office 'crush.' Such big receptions bore one terribly—you never see anybody you really want to know, and the Prime Minister always looks tired to death. His face is a study in several agonies. Two or three years ago? Oh no,—I don't think I was in London at that time. And you were there, were you? Really!"

She handed a cup of tea with a bewitching smile and a 'Will you kindly pass it?' to Julian Adderley, who so impetuously accepted the task she imposed upon him of acting as general waiter to the company, that in hastening towards her he caught his foot in the trailing laces of her gown and nearly fell over the tea-tray.

"A thousand pardons!" he murmured, righting himself with an effort—
"So clumsy of me!"

"Don't mention it!" said Maryllia, placidly—"Will you hand bread- and-butter to Miss Pippitt, Do you take hot cake, Sir Morton?"

Sir Morton's face had become considerably redder during this interval, and, as he spread his handkerchief out on one knee to receive the possible dribblings of tea from the cup he had begun to sip at somewhat noisily, he looked as he certainly felt, rather at a loss what next to say. He was not long in this state of indecision, however, for a bright idea occurred to him, causing a smile to spread among his loose cheek-wrinkles.

"I'm sorry my friend the Duke of Lumpton has left me," he said with unctuous pomp. "He would have been delighted—er—delighted to call with me to-day—"

"Who is he?" enquired Maryllia, languidly.

Again Sir Morton reddened, but managed to conceal his discomfiture in a fat laugh.

"Well, my dear lady, he is Lumpton!—that is enough for him, and for most people—"

"Really?—Oh—well—of course!—I suppose so!" interrupted Maryllia, with an expressive smile, which caused Miss Tabitha's angular form, perched as it was on the high music-stool, to quiver with spite, and moved Miss Tabitha's neatly gloved fingers to clench like a cat's claws in their kid sheaths with an insane desire to scratch the fair face on which that smile was reflected.

"He is a charming fellow, the Duke-charming-charming!" went on Sir Morton, unconscious of the complex workings of thought in his elderly daughter's acidulated brain! "And his great 'chum,' Lord Mawdenham, has also been staying with us—but they left Badsworth yesterday, I'm sorry to say. They travelled up to London with Lady Elizabeth Messing, who paid us a visit of two or three days—"

"Lady Elizabeth Messing!" echoed Maryllia, with a sudden ripple of laughter—"Dear me! Did you have her staying with you? How very nice of you! She is such a terror!"

Mr. Marius Longford stroked one of his pussy-cat whiskers thoughtfully, and put in his word.

"Lady Elizabeth spoke of you, Miss Vancourt, several times," he said. "In fact"—and he smiled—"she had a good deal to say! She remembers meeting you in Paris, and—if I mistake not—also at Homburg on one occasion. She was surprised to hear you were coming to live in this dull country place—she said it would never suit you at all—you were altogether too brilliant—er—" he bowed—" and er- -charming!" This complimentary phrase was spoken with the air of a beneficent paterfamilias giving a child a bon-bon.

Maryllia's glance swept over him carelessly.

"Much obliged to her, I'm sure!" she said—"I can quite imagine the anxiety she felt concerning me! So good of her! Is she a great friend of yours?"

Mr. Longford looked slightly disconcerted.

"Well, no," he replied—"I have only during these last few days— through Sir Morton—had the pleasure of her acquaintance—"

"Mr. Longford is not a 'society' man!" said Sir Morton, with a chuckle—"He lives on the heights of Parnassus—and looks down with scorn on the browsing sheep in the valleys below! He is a great author!"

"Indeed!" and Maryllia raised her delicately arched eyebrows with a faint movement of polite surprise—"But all authors are great nowadays, aren't they? There are no little ones left."

"Oh, yes, indeed, and alas, there are!" exclaimed Julian Adderley, flourishing his emptied tea-cup in the air before setting it back in its saucer and depositing the whole on a table before him; "I am one of them, Miss Vancourt! Pray be merciful to me!"

The absurd attitude of appeal he assumed moved Maryllia to a laugh.

"Well, when you look like that I guess I will!" she said playfully, not without a sense of liking for the quaint human creature who so willingly made himself ridiculous without being conscious of it— "What is your line in the small way?"

"Verse!" he replied, with tragic emphasis—"Verse which nobody reads—verse which nobody wants—verse which whenever it struggles into publication, my erudite friend here, Mr. Longford, batters into pulp with a sledge-hammer review of half-a-dozen lines in the heavier magazines. Verse, my dear Miss Vancourt!—verse written to please myself, though its results do not feed myself. But what matter! I am happy! This village of St. Rest, for example, has exercised a spell of enchantment over me. It has soothed my soul! So much so, that I have taken a cottage in a wood—how melodious that sounds!—at the modest rent of a pound a week. That much I can afford,—that much I will risk—and on the air, the water, the nuts, the berries, the fruits, the flowers, I will live like a primaeval man, and let the baser world go by!" He ran his fingers through his long hair. "It will be an experience! So new—so fresh!"

Miss Tabitha sniffed sarcastically, and gave a short, hard laugh.

"I hope you'll enjoy yourself!" she said tartly—"But you'll soon tire. I told you at once when you said you had decided to spend the summer in this neighbourhood that you'd regret it. You'll find it very dull."

"Oh, I don't think he will!" murmured Maryllia graciously; "He will be writing poetry all the time, you see! Besides, with you and Sir Morton as neighbours, how CAN he feel dull? Won't you have some more tea?"

"No, thank you!" and Miss Pippitt rose,—"Father, we must be going. You have not yet explained to Miss Vancourt the object of our visit."

"True, true!" and Sir Morton got out of his chair with some difficulty—"Time flies fast in such fascinating company!" and he smiled beamingly—"We came, my dear lady, to ask you to dine with us on Thursday next at Badsworth Hall." No words could convey the pomposity which Sir Morton managed to infuse into this simple sentence. To dine at Badsworth was, or ought to be, according to his idea, the utmost height of human bliss and ambition. "We will invite some of our most distinguished neighbours to meet you,—there are a few of the old stock left—" this as if he were of the 'old stock' himself;—"I knew your father—poor fellow!—and of course I remember seeing you as a child, though you don't remember me—ha- ha!—but I shall be delighted to welcome you under my roof—"

"Thanks so much!" said Maryllia, demurely—"But please let it be for another time, will you? I haven't a single evening disengaged between this and the end of June! So sorry! I'll come over to tea some day, with pleasure! I know Badsworth. Dear old place!—quite famous too, once in the bygone days—almost as famous as Abbot's Manor itself. Let me see!" and she looked up at the ceiling musingly—"There was a Badsworth who fought against the Commonwealth,—and there was another who was Prime Minister or something of that kind,—then there was a Sir Thomas Badsworth who wrote books—and another who did some wonderful service for King James the First—yes, and there were some lovely women in the family, too—I suppose their portraits are all there? Yes—I thought so!"—this as Sir Morton nodded a blandly possessive affirmative— "How things change, don't they? Poor old Badsworth! So funny to think you live there! Oh, yes! I'll come over—certainly I'll come over,—some day!"

Thus murmuring polite platitudes, Maryllia bade her visitors adieu.
Sir Morton conquered an inclination to gasp for breath and say
'Damn!' at the young lady's careless refusal of his invitation to
dinner,—Miss Tabitha secretly rejoiced.

"I'm sure I don't want her at Badsworth," she said within herself, viciously—"Nasty little insolent conceited thing! I believe her hair is dyed, and her complexion put on! A regular play-actress!"

Unconscious of the spinster's amiable thoughts, Maryllia was holding out a hand to her.

"Good-bye!" she said—"So kind of you to come and see me! I'm sure you think I must be lonely here. But I'm not, really! I don't think I ever shall be,—because as soon as I have got the house quite in order, I am going to ask a great many friends to stay with me in turn. They will enjoy seeing the old place, and country air is such a boon to London people! Good-bye!"—and here she turned to Marius Longford—"I'm afraid I haven't read any of your books!—anyway I expect they would be too deep for me. Wouldn't they?"

"Lord Roxmouth has been good enough to express his liking for my poor efforts," he replied, with a slight covert smile—"I believe you know him?"

"Oh, quite well—quite too well!" said Maryllia, without any discomposure—"But what he likes, I always detest. Unfortunate, isn't it! So I mustn't even try to read your works! You, Mr. Adderley"—and she laughingly looked up at that gentleman, who, hat in hand, was pensively drooping in a farewell attitude before her,— "you are going to stop here all summer, aren't you? And in a cottage! How delightful! Anywhere near the Manor?"

"I am not so happy as to have found a domicile on this side Eden!" murmured Adderley, with a languishing look—"My humble hut is set some distance apart,—about a mile beyond the rectory."

"Then your best neighbour will be the parson," said Maryllia, gaily-
-"So improving to your morals!"

"Possibly—possibly! "assented Adderley—" Mr. Walden is not exactly like other parsons,—there is something wonderfully attractive about him—"

"Something wonderfully conceited and unbearable, you mean!" snapped out Sir Morton—"Come, come!—we must be off! The horses are at the door,—can't keep them standing! Miss Vancourt doesn't want to hear anything about the parson. She'll find him out soon enough for herself. He's an upstart, my dear lady—take my word for it!—a pretentious University prig and upstart! You'll never meet HIM at Badsworth!—ha-ha-ha! Never! Sorry you can't dine on Thursday! Never mind, never mind! Another time! Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" and with a slight further exchange of salutations Maryllia found herself relieved of her visitors. Of all the four, Adderley alone looked back with a half-appealing smile, and received an encouraging little nod for his pains—a nod which said 'Yes—you can come again if you like!' The wheels of the Pippitt equipage crunched heavily down the drive, and as the grating sound died away, clear on the quiet air came the soft slow chime of the church-bells ringing. It was near sunset,—and Walden sometimes held a short simple service of evening prayer at that hour. Leaning against the open window Maryllia listened.

"How pretty it is!" she said—"It must be the nearness of the river that makes the tone of the bells so soft and mellow! Oh, what an insufferable old snob that Pippitt is! And what a precious crew of 'friends' he boasts of! Lumpton, who, when he was a few years younger, danced the skirt-dance in women's clothes for forty pounds a night at a New York restaurant!—Mawdenham, who pawned all his mother's jewels to pay his losses at Bridge—and Lady Elizabeth Messing, who is such an abandoned old creature that her own married daughters won't know her! Oh, dear! And I believe the Knighted Bone- Boiler thinks they are quite good style! That literary man, Longford, was a most unprepossessing looking object,—a friend of Roxmouth's too, which makes him all the more unpleasant. And of course he will at once write off and say he has seen me. And then— and then-dear me! I wonder where Sir Morton picks these people up! He doesn't like the parson here evidently—'a pretentious University prig and upstart'—what a strong way of putting it!—very strong for such a clean-looking old man! 'A pretentious University prig and upstart' are you, Mr. Walden!" Here, smiling to herself, she moved out into the garden and called her dog to her side—"Do you hear that, Plato? Our next-door neighbour is a prig as well as a parson!- -isn't it dreadful!" Plato looked up at her with great loving brown eyes and wagged his plumy tail. "I believe he is,—and yet—yet all the same, I think—yes!—I think, as soon as a convenient opportunity presents itself, I'll ask him to dinner."