t a dairymaid at Ashpound was
up and abroad at so primitive an hour as its mistress, ready to walk
with the Squire to his horses' stalls and paddocks, his cattle sheds,
his game preserves, his workpeople in the fields; anywhere but to the
sign of the 'Spreading Ash-tree,' in the village of Ash-cum-thorpe, for
his morning draught.

"Well-a-day," cried Dolly; "I would not be the mistress, to rise and go
to her work afore the stroke of six, and she a fine lady born and bred,
for all the hats and feathers, table heads, and carriage-seats in this
here world. If I ever have a word to say to Luke Jobling, I know it will
be with an eye to a good long lie in the morning when he has gone to his
mowing or his reaping. How Madam does it without ever drooping an
eyelid, none of us can tell; but they do say the gentlefolks are as
strong as steel when they like to put out their strength; happen it is
the high living as gives it to them. I know Madam puts us to our mettle
here. And lawk! the Squire, he's as restless and lost like as a new
weaned calf. Eh! I had liefer have the holding-in of a senseless calf,
though I had not Luke to help me with the bars of the gates, than the
holding in of a full-grown, whole-witted man. But the poor
mistress--them as don't know the rights of a thing calls her
saucy--young lady though she be, she do work hard for her place and
living, she do, since she has got Master Gervase and Ashpound."

Anticipating her husband's commands, Diana was ever ready to bear him
company, to share his engagements and amusements, walking, riding,
shooting, fishing, playing billiards, cribbage, bowls, racket,
backgammon, draughts, for hours on a stretch; to go abroad attending the
market and doing banking business at Market Hesketh, dining out with the
Vicar or with any country host save Mr. Baring--Mrs. Gervase Norgate
setting her face against the paternal hospitalities--dancing at the
county balls as one of the leaders. She did not seem to know what
weariness meant. She would trudge whole half-days with him and the
keepers, after luncheon, beating the plantations and pacing the
turnip-fields to start and bring down birds, and she would be sauntering
with him on the terrace and in the park after dinner all the same. She
would be in the saddle ten hours during a long day's hunt, as the autumn
advanced and the meets assembled, and within an hour of alighting at the
door of Ashpound, she would have exchanged muddy bottle-gre