poor creature. Such a
nice wife he had--he says she's in Chelmsford workhouse. I'll send him
on to old Dawkins at Dane End; I'll get him to give the poor wretch a
few days' work."

Ellen disliked her as she left the room. She looked thick and ordinary,
and was apparently absorbed in the mildly gross satisfaction of a
well-to-do woman at being bountiful. Moreover, she had in some way hurt
Richard, for his face was dark when he came back to the table.

But an amazement struck Ellen as she thought over the scene. "Richard,"
she exclaimed excitedly, "is it not just wonderful that this man should
come to your mother for help after she'd put him to the door? I'm sure
she'd make a body feel just dirt if she was putting them to the door. It
would be a quiet affair, but awful uncomfortable. But she's such a good
woman that, even seeing her like that, he knew she was the one to come
to when he was really in trouble. Do you not think it's like that?"

"Oh yes," he almost groaned. "Even when she's at her worst you know that
she's still better than anyone else on this earth."

When Marion came back she sat down at the table without noticing what
seemed to Ellen his obvious dejection, and began to talk about this man
Milford, telling of the power he had over his beasts and how a prize
heifer that they then had, by the name of Susan Caraway, had fretted for
three weeks after he had left. She said that he gained this power over
animals not by any real love for them, for he was indifferent to them
except when he was actually touching them, and would always scamp his
work without regard for their comfort, but simply by some physical
magnetism, and pointed out that there it resembled the power some men
have over women. It surprised Ellen that she laughed as she said that,
and seemed to find pleasure in the thought of such a power. When the
meal was over she sat for a moment, gathering together the breadcrumbs
by her plate, and said pensively: "Yes, it might quite easily have been
Roger." Ellen wondered how it was that Richard had always spoken of his
mother as if she needed his protection, when her voice was so nearly
coarse with the sense of being able to outface all encounterable events,
and she felt a flash of contempt for his judgment. She wished, too, that
when Marion rose from, the table he had not followed her so closely
upstairs and hovered round her as she took up her stand on the
hearthrug, with her elbow on the mantelpiece