ere little, and though he had found himself liking them
less and less as they grew into their teens he had never troubled to
enquire whose fault that was, so certain was he that it couldn't be
his. Still less was it his fault if they were savage and inaccessible
in their twenties. Of course he didn't mean that Mary was savage and
inaccessible. It was Gwendolen that he meant.

So, since he couldn't sit there much longer without saying something,
he presently addressed himself to Mary.

"Any news of Greatorex today?"

"I haven't heard. Shall I ask Essy?"

"No," said Mr. Cartaret, so abruptly that Mary looked at him.

"He was worse yesterday," said Gwenda.

They all looked at Gwenda.

"Who told you that?" said Mr. Cartaret by way of saying something.

"Mrs. Gale."

"When did she tell you?"

"Yesterday, when I was up at the farm."

"What were you doing at the farm?"

"Nothing. I went to see if I could do anything." She said to herself,
"Why does he go on at us like this?" Aloud she said, "It was time some
of us went."

She had him there. She was always having him.

"I shall have to go myself tomorrow," he said.

"I would if I were you," said Gwenda.

"I wonder what Jim Greatorex will do if his father dies."

It was Mary who wondered.

"He'll get married, like a shot," said Alice.

"Who to?" said Gwenda. "He can't marry _all_ the girls----"

She stopped herself. Essy Gale was in the room. Three months ago
Essy had been a servant at the Farm where her mother worked once a
fortnight.

She had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. She
brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the Vicar and a glass
of milk for Alice. She put it down quietly and slipped out of the room
without her customary "Anything more, Miss?" and "Good-night."

"What's the matter with Essy?" Gwenda said.

Nobody spoke but Alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk.

More than a year ago Alice had been ordered milk for her anaemia. She
had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and
milk last thing at night. She did not like milk, but she liked being
ordered it. Generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of
her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. She took a
half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anaemia. She knew that
it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father.

Now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn