sked with a hurried change of tone, 'Did ye ask un' hoo
his daater is?'

Mrs. Thornburgh started. Her pastoral conscience was smitten. She opened
the gate and waved violently after the cart. John pulled his horse up,
and with a few quick steps she brought herself within speaking, or
rather shouting, distance.

'How's your daughter to-day, John?'

The old man's face peering round the oilcloth hood of the cart was
darkened by a sudden cloud as he caught the words. His stern lips
closed. He muttered something inaudible to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped
up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left
staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his seat
on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from
benevolence into a preternatural solemnity.

'He's sparin' ov 'is speach is John Backhouse,' said Sarah grimly, as
her mistress returned to her. 'Maybe ee's aboot reet. It's a bad
business an' ee'll not mend it wi' taakin'.'

Mrs. Thornburgh, however, could not apply herself to the case of Mary
Backhouse. At any other moment it would have excited in her breast the
shuddering interest which, owing to certain peculiar attendant
circumstances, it awakened in every other woman in Long Whindale. But
her mind--such are the limitations of even clergymen's wives--was now
absorbed by her own misfortune. Her very cap-strings seemed to hang limp
with depression, as she followed Sarah dejectedly into the kitchen, and
gave what attention she could to those second-best arrangements so
depressing to the idealist temper.

Poor soul! All the charm and glitter of her little social adventure was
gone. When she once more emerged upon the lawn, and languidly readjusted
her spectacles, she was weighed down by the thought that in two hours
Mrs. Seaton would be upon her. Nothing of this kind ever happened to
Mrs. Seaton. The universe obeyed her nod. No carrier conveying goods to
her august door ever got drunk or failed to deliver his consignment. The
thing was inconceivable. Mrs. Thornburgh was well aware of it.

Should William be informed? Mrs. Thornburgh had a rooted belief in the
brutality of husbands in all domestic crises, and would have preferred
not to inform him. But she had also a dismal certainty that the secret
would burn a hole in her till it was confessed--bill and all.
Besides--frightful thought!--would they have to eat up all those
_meringues_ next day?

Her reflections at