arket-day--when
she came in rather "flustered," saying there had been a mob outside the
mill, until "that young man Halifax" had gone out and spoken to
them--she never once allowed me to take my rare walk under the trees in
the Abbey-yard; nor, if she could help it, would she even let me sit
watching the lazy Avon from the garden-wall.

One Sunday--it was the 1st of August, for my father had just come back
from meeting, very much later than usual, and Jael said he had gone, as
was his annual custom on that his wedding-day, to the Friends' burial
ground in St. Mary's Lane, where, far away from her own kindred and
people, my poor young mother had been laid,--on this one Sunday I began
to see that things were going wrong. Abel Fletcher sat at dinner
wearing the heavy, hard look which had grown upon his face not
unmingled with the wrinkles planted by physical pain. For, with all
his temperance, he could not quite keep down his hereditary enemy,
gout; and this week it had clutched him pretty hard.

Dr. Jessop came in, and I stole away gladly enough, and sat for an hour
in my old place in the garden, idly watching the stretch of meadow,
pasture, and harvest land. Noticing, too, more as a pretty bit in the
landscape than as a fact of vital importance, in how many places the
half-ripe corn was already cut, and piled in thinly-scattered sheaves
over the fields.

After the doctor left, my father sent for me and all his household: in
the which, creeping humbly after the woman-kind, was now numbered the
lad Jem. That Abel Fletcher was not quite himself was proved by the
fact that his unlighted pipe lay on the table, and his afternoon
tankard of ale sank from foam to flatness untouched.

He first addressed Jael. "Woman, was it thee who cooked the dinner
to-day?"

She gave a dignified affirmative.

"Thee must give us no more such dinners. No cakes, no pastry
kickshaws, and only wheaten bread enough for absolute necessity. Our
neighbours shall not say that Abel Fletcher has flour in his mill, and
plenty in his house, while there is famine abroad in the land. So take
heed."

"I do take heed," answered Jael, staunchly. "Thee canst not say I
waste a penny of thine. And for myself, do I not pity the poor? On
First-day a woman cried after me about wasting good flour in
starch--to-day, behold."

And with a spasmodic bridling-up, she pointed to the bouffante which
used to stand up stiffly round her withered old throat, a