; but as for me, I order myself to
my betters as I should, so long as they orders themselves to me. 'Taint
no use to say as how we're all level; you've only got to go to Mothers'
Meetings, my old missus says, to see that. 'Tis no use looking for too
much, nor eating salt with red herrings."

"Well, well," the other deprecated, "I'm not blaming his lordship so
much as them that lead him on."

"Don't go for to blame the girl, neither, too hardly; there's faults on
both sides. His grandfather didn't always toe the line, and there were
some on her side didn't set too good an example, neither. I've seen
many a queer thing in my time, and have got to think blood's blood, and
forerunners more to blame than children. If there's drink in fathers,
there'll be drink in sons and grandsons till 'tis worked out; and if
there's wild love in the mothers, daughters 'll likely sell their apples
too. No, no, God-amighty never made us equal, and don't expect us all
to be churchwardens. Some on us comes of virtuous forerunners, and are
born with wings at the back of our shoulders like you"--and he gave a
whimsical look at his listener's heavy figure--"to lift us up to the
vaulting; and some on us our fathers fits out with lead soles to the
bottom of our boots to keep us on the floor."

Saturday afternoon was Lord Blandamer's hour, and for three Saturdays
running Miss Joliffe deserted the Dorcas meeting in order to keep guard
at home. It rejoiced the moral hearts of ill-natured and tale-bearing
Miss Sharp and of lying and mischief-making Mrs Flint that the
disreputable old woman had at least the decency not to show herself
among her betters, but such defection was a sore trial to Miss Joliffe.
She told herself on each occasion that she _could_ not make such a
sacrifice again, and yet the love of Anastasia constrained her. To her
niece she offered the patent excuse of being unwell, but the girl
watched her with wonder and dismay chafe feverishly through the two
hours, which had been immemorially consecrated to these meetings. The
recurrence of a weekly pleasure, which seems so limitless in youth and
middle age, becomes less inexhaustible as life turns towards sunset.
Thirty takes lightly enough the foregoing of a Saturday reunion, the
uncongenial spending of a Sunday; but seventy can see the end of the
series, and grudges every unit of the total that remains.

For three Saturdays Miss Joliffe watched, and for three Saturdays no