ra, simply.

"Not like them! Considering that I am the daughter, the widow, and the
mother of clergymen, I consider that remark a deliberate insult to me!"

"Dear Mrs. Daintree, I am sure Vera never meant----" cried Marion,
trembling for fear of a fresh battle.

"Don't interrupt me, Marion; you ought to have more proper pride than to
stand by and hear the Church reviled."

"Vera only said she did not like them."

"No more I do, Marion," said Vera, stifling a yawn--"not when they are
young; when they are old, like Eustace, they are far better; but when
they are young they are all exactly alike--equally harmless when out of
the pulpit, and equally wearisome when in it!"

A few moments of offended silence on the part of the elder lady,
during which she tugs fiercely and savagely at the ragged sock in her
hands--then she bursts forth again.

"You may scorn them as much as you like, but let me tell you that the
life of a clergyman's wife--honoured, respected, and useful--is a more
profitable one than the idle existence which you lead, utterly
purposeless and lazy. You never do one single thing from morning till
night."

"What shall I do? Shall I help you to darn Eustace's socks?" reaching at
one of them out of the basket.

Mrs. Daintree wrenched it angrily from her hand.

"Good gracious! as if you could! What a bungle it would be. Why, I never
saw you with a piece of work in your hand in my life. I dare say you
could not even thread a needle."

"I am quite sure I have never threaded one yet," laughed Vera, lazily. "I
might try; but you see you won't let me be useful, so I had better resign
myself to idleness." And then she rose and took her hat, and went out
through the French window, out among the fallen yellow leaves, leaving
the other women to discuss the vexed problem of her existence.

She discussed it to herself as she walked dreamily along under the trees
in the lane beyond the garden, her head bent, and her eyes fixed upon the
ground; she swung her hat idly in her hand, for it was warm for the time
of year, and the gold-brown leaves fluttered down about her head and
rustled under the dark, trailing skirts behind her.

About half a mile up the lane, beyond the vicarage, stood an old iron
gateway leading into a park. It was flanked by square red-brick columns,
upon whose summits two stone griffins, "rampant," had looked each other
in the face for the space of some two hundred years or so, peering grimly