‘Some day we’ll have saved some money,’ she said, in a low voice—­’and then we’ll go to London; and—­and John will get on.’

‘Yes—­when you stop holding him back, Mrs. Phoebe Fenwick!’

‘Oh!  Miss Anna, I don’t hold him back!’ cried the wife, suddenly, impetuously.

Miss Mason shook an incredulous head.

’I haven’t heard a single word of his bettering himself—­of his doing anything but muddle on here—­having a “crack” with this farmer and that—­and painting pictures he’s a sight too good for, since I came this morning; and we’ve talked for hours.  No—­I may as well have it out—­I’m a one for plain speaking; I’m a bit disappointed in you both.  As for you, Phoebe, you’ll be precious sorry for it some day if you don’t drive him out of this.’

‘Where should I drive him to?’ cried Mrs. Fenwick, stifled.  She had broken a sycamore twig, and was stripping it violently of its buds.

Miss Anna looked at her unmoved.  The grey-haired schoolmistress was a woman of ideas and ambitions beyond her apparent scope in life.  She had read her Carlyle and Ruskin, and in her calling she was an enthusiast.  But, in the words of the Elizabethan poet, she was perhaps ‘unacquainted still with her own soul.’  She imagined herself a Radical; she was in truth a tyrant.  She preached Ruskin and the simple life; no worldling ever believed more fiercely in the gospel of success.  But, let it be said promptly, it was success for others, rarely or never for herself; she despised the friend who could not breast and conquer circumstance; as for her own case, there were matters much more interesting to think of.  But she was the gadfly, the spur of all to whom she gave her affection.  Phoebe, first her pupil, then her under-mistress, and moulded still by the old habit of subordination to her, both loved and dreaded her.  It was said that she had made the match between her protegee and old Fenwick’s rebellious and gifted son.  She had certainly encouraged it, and, whether from conscience or invincible habit, she had meddled a good deal with it ever since.

In reply to Phoebe’s question, Miss Anna merely inquired whether Mrs. Fenwick supposed that George Romney—­the Westmoreland artist—­would have had much chance with his art if he had stayed on in Westmoreland?  Why, the other day a picture by Romney had been sold for three thousand pounds!  And pray, would he ever have become a great painter at all if he had stuck to Kendal or Dalton-in-Furness all his life?—­if he had never been brought in contact with the influences, the money, and the sitters of London?  Those were the questions that Phoebe had to answer.  ’Would the beautiful Lady This and Lady That ever have come to Kendal to be painted?—­would he ever have seen Lady Hamilton?’

At this Mrs. Fenwick flushed hotly from brow to chin.

‘I rather wonder at you, Miss Anna!’ she said, breathing fast; ’you think it was all right he should desert his wife for thirty years—­so—­so long as he painted pictures of that bad woman, Lady Hamilton, for you to look at!’