atters."

Yet when her husband had said to her: "It is a very disagreeable
business indeed this. I think I'll get you to go. You'll manage it
with so much more tact than a man," the poor lady, unaccustomed to
compliments, was gratified. Now, however, thanks to Beth, she had been
nearer to making an acute observation than she had ever been in her
life before; she all but perceived that the woman's sphere is never
home exclusively when man can make use of her for his own purposes
elsewhere. The sphere is the stable he ties her up in when he does not
want her, and takes her from again to drag him out of a difficulty, or
up to some distinction, just as it suits himself.

Mrs. Caldwell and Beth waited for Mrs. Richardson to commit herself,
but gave her no further help.

"The truth is," she recommenced desperately, "we have lost an
excellent pupil. His people have been informed that he was carrying on
an intrigue with a girl in this place, and have taken him away at a
moment's notice."

"And what has that to do with us?" Mrs. Caldwell asked politely.

"The girl is said to be your daughter."

"This is my eldest daughter at home," Mrs. Caldwell answered. "She is
not yet fourteen."

"But she's a very big girl," Mrs. Richardson faltered.

"Who is this person, this pupil you allude to?" Mrs. Caldwell asked
superciliously.

"He is the son of wealthy Nottingham people."

"Ah! lace manufacturers, I suppose," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined.

"Yes--s," Mrs. Richardson acknowledged with reluctance. She
associated, as she was expected to do, with gentlemen who debauched
themselves freely, but would have scorned the acquaintance of a
shopman of saintly life.

"Then certainly not a proper acquaintance for my daughter," Mrs.
Caldwell decided, with the manner of a county lady speaking to a
person whom she knows to be nobody by birth. "Beth, will you be good
enough to tell us what you know of this youth?"

"I was caught by the tide on the sands one day, and he was there, and
helped me; and I always spoke to him afterwards. I thought I ought,
for politeness' sake," Beth answered easily.

"May I ask how that strikes you?" Mrs. Caldwell, turning to Mrs.
Richardson, requested to know, but did not wait for a reply. "It
strikes me," she proceeded, "that your husband's parish must be in an
appalling state of neglect and disorder when slander is so rife that
he loses a good pupil because an act of common politeness, a service
rendered by a