and revealed a clean interior,
but very indigent, with the tea-table set, and on a wooden stool by the
hearth a tall, fair young woman sitting, who rose and dropt a smiling
curtsey to Miss Fairfax: she was Alice, the second housemaid at
Abbotsmead, and waited on the white suite. She explained that Mrs. Macky
had given her leave to walk over and see her mother, but she was out at
work; and this was her aunt Jane, retired from service and come to live
at home with her widowed sister.

An old range well polished, an oven that would not bake, and a boiler
that would not hold water,--this was the fireplace. The floor was of
bricks, sunken in waves and broken; through a breach in the roof of the
chamber over the "house" blew the wind and leaked the rain, in spite of
a sack stuffed with straw thrust between the rafters and the tiles.

"Yes, ma'am, my poor sister has lived in this place for sixteen years,
and paid the rent regularly, three pounds a year: I've sent her the
money since she lost her husband," said the retired servant, in reply to
some question of Mrs. Chiverton's. "Blagg is such a miser that he won't
spend a penny on his places; it is promise, promise for ever. And what
can my poor sister do? She dar'n't affront him, for where could she go
if she was turned out of this? There's a dozen would jump at it, houses
is so scarce and not to be had."

"There ought to be a swift remedy for wretches like Blagg," Mrs.
Chiverton indignantly exclaimed when they were clear of the
foul-smelling hamlet. "Why cannot it be an item of duty for the rural
police to give information of his extortion and neglect? Those poor
women are robbed, and they are utterly helpless to resist it. It is a
greater crime than stealing on the highway."

"Do any of grandpapa's people live at Morte?" Bessie asked.

"No, I think not; they are ours and Mr. Gifford's, and a colony of
miserable gentry who exist nobody can tell how, but half their time in
jail. It was a man from Morte who shot our head-keeper last September.
Poor wretch! he is waiting his trial now. When I have paid a visit to
Morte I always feel indifferent to my beautiful home."

Bessie Fairfax felt a sharp pang of compunction for her former hard
judgment of Mrs. Chiverton. If it was ever just, time and circumstances
were already reversing it. The early twilight overtook them some miles
from Castlemount, but it was still clear enough to see a picturesque
ivied tower not far removed f