verily assent with you that we should do
something to help her. And first--who will take to Sens Bradbridge's
maids?"

"I will, if none else wants 'em. But they'll not be pampered and
stuffed with cates, and lie on down beds, and do nought, if they dwell
with me. I shall learn 'em to fare hard and be useful, I can tell you."

"Whether of the twain call you them syllabubs and custard pies as you
set afore us when we supped last with you, Mistress Hall?" quietly asked
Ursula Final. "Seemed to me I could put up with hard fare o' that sort
metely well."

"Don't be a goose, Ursula. They've got to keep their hands in,
a-cooking, haven't they? and when things be made, you can't waste 'em
nor give 'em the pigs. They've got to be ate, haven't they?" demanded
Mrs Tabitha, in tones of battle; and Ursula subsided without attempting
a defence.

"What say you, Tom?" asked Roger, looking at his brother.

Mr Thomas Hall, apparently, did not dare to say anything. He glanced
deprecatingly at his domestic tyrant, and murmured a few words, half
swallowed in the utterance, of which "all agree" were the only
distinguishable syllables.

"Oh, he'll say as I say," responded Tabitha unblushingly. "There's no
man in the Weald knows his duty better than Thomas Hall; it'd be a mercy
if he'd sometimes do it."

Mr Thomas Hall's look of meek appeal said "Don't I?" in a manner which
was quite pathetic.

"Seems to me," said Ralph Final, the young landlord of the White Hart,
"that if we were all to put of a hat or a bowl such moneys as we could
one and another of us afford by the year, for Mistress Pardue and the
childre--such as could give money, look you--and them that couldn't
should say what they would give, it'd be as plain a way as any."

"Well said, Ralph!" pronounced Mrs Tabitha, who took the lead as usual.
"I'll give my maids' cast-off clothes for the childre, the elder, I
mean, such as 'll fit 'em; the younger must go for Patience and Charity.
And I'll let 'em have a quart of skim milk by the day, as oft as I have
it to spare; and eggs if I have 'em. And Thomas 'll give 'em ten
shillings by the year. And I shouldn't marvel if I can make up a kirtle
or a hood for Collet by nows and thens, out of some gear of my own."

Mr Thomas Hall being looked at by the Synod to see if he assented,
confirmed the statement of his arbitrary Tabitha by a submissive nod.

"I'll give two nobles by the year," said Ralph, "and a peck of barley