Before beginning on her jellies and gravies Mrs. Latch was sure to find some saucepans that had not been sufficiently cleaned with white sand, and, if her search proved abortive, she would send Esther upstairs to scrub out her bedroom.

"I cannot think why she is so down upon me," Esther often said to
Margaret.

"She isn't more down upon you than she was on the others. You needn't expect to learn any cooking from her; her plan has always been to take care that she shall not be supplanted by any of her kitchen-maids. But I don't see why she should be always sending you upstairs to clean out her bedroom. If Grover wasn't so stand-offish, we might tell her about it, and she could tell the Saint—that's what we call the missis; the Saint would soon put a stop to all that nonsense. I will say that for the Saint, she do like everyone to have fair play."

Mrs. Barfield, or the Saint, as she was called, belonged, like Esther, to the sect known as the Plymouth Brethren. She was the daughter of one of the farmers on the estate—a very old man called Elliot. He had spent his life on his barren down farm, becoming intimate with no one, driving hard bargains with all, especially the squire and the poor flint-pickers. He could be seen still on the hill-sides, his long black coat buttoned strictly about him, his soft felt hat crushed over the thin, grey face. Pretty Fanny Elliot had won the squire's heart as he rode across the down. Do you not see the shy figure of the Puritan maiden tripping through the gorse, hastening the hoofs of the squire's cob? And, furnished with some pretext of estate business, he often rode to the farm that lay under the shaws at the end of the coombe. The squire had to promise to become one of the Brethren and he had to promise never to bet again, before Fanny Elliot agreed to become Mrs. Barfield. The ambitious members of the Barfield family declared that the marriage was social ruin, but more dispassionate critics called it a very suitable match; for it was not forgotten that three generations ago the Barfields were livery-stable keepers; they had risen in the late squire's time to the level of county families, and the envious were now saying that the Barfield family was sinking back whence it came.

He was faithful to his promises for a time. Race-horses disappeared from the Woodview stables. It was not until after the birth of both his children that he entered one of his hunters in the hunt steeplechase. Soon after the racing stable was again in full swing at Woodview. Tears there were, and some family disunion, but time extorts concessions from all of us. Mrs. Barfield had ceased to quarrel with her husband on the subject of his racehorses, and he in his turn did not attempt to restrict her in the exercise of her religion. She attended prayer-meetings when her soul moved her, and read the Scriptures when and where she pleased.

It was one of her practices to have the women-servants for half-an-hour every Sunday afternoon in the library, and instruct them in the life of Christ. Mrs. Barfield's goodness was even as a light upon her little oval face—reddish hair growing thin at the parting and smoothed back above the ears, as in an old engraving. Although nearly fifty, her figure was slight as a young girl's. Esther was attracted by the magnetism of racial and religious affinities; and when their eyes met at prayers there was acknowledgment of religious kinship. A glow of happiness filled Esther's soul, for she knew she was no longer wholly among strangers; she knew they were united—she and her mistress—under the sweet dominion of Christ. To look at Mrs. Barfield filled her, somehow, with recollections of her pious childhood; she saw herself in the old shop, moving again in an atmosphere of prayer, listening to the beautiful story, in the annunciation of which her life had grown up. She answered her mistress's questions in sweet light-heartedness of spirit, pleasing her with her knowledge of the Holy Book. But in turn the servants had begun to read verses aloud from the New Testament, and Esther saw that her secret would be torn from her. Sarah had read a verse, and Mrs.