“Who’s been smoking here?” the girl asked immediately on entering the barn.

“Me, Miss,” said Jerry.

Monkey Brand was fond of affirming that on the whole the lads told the truth to Miss Boy.  But whether it was the girl’s personality or her horsemanship that accounted for this departure from established rule it was hard to surmise.

“You might leave that to Jaggers’s lads,” said the girl.  “Surely we might keep this one hour in the week clean.”

Mr. Haggard had once said that the girl was a Greek.  He might have added—­a Greek with an evangelical tendency.  For this Sunday morning hour was no perfunctory exercise for her.  It was a reality, looming always larger with the years, and on horseback, in the train, at stables, was perpetually recurring to the girl throughout the week.

In the struggle between her father and her mother in her blood, the mother was winning the ascendancy.

“I thought the rule was we might smoke if you was late, Miss,” said Jerry, in the subdued voice he always adopted when speaking to his young mistress.

“It’s not the rule, Jerry,” the girl replied quietly, “as you’re perfectly well aware.  And even if it was the rule it would be bad manners.  Alfred, give me those cards.”

“What cards, Miss?”

“The cards you were playing with when I came in.”

The cherub produced a dingy pack.

“They’re only picture cards, Miss,” he said.

The girl’s gray eyes seemed to engulf the lad, friendly if a little stern.

“Have you been gambling?” she asked.

“No, Miss,” with obvious truthfulness.

“He’s got nothin’ to gamble with,” jeered the brutal Stanley.  “His mother takes it all.”

The girl mounted swiftly on to the platform, saw the writing on the blackboard, and swept it away with a duster.

Then she turned to her little congregation, feeling their temper with sure and sensitive spirit.

They were out of hand, and it was because she had been late through no fault of her own.  The kitchenmaid had fainted, and Boy had, of course, been sent for.

There was one hope of steadying them.

“We’ll start with a hymn,” she said, taking her seat at the harmonium.  “Get your hymn-books.  What hymn shall we have?  Alfred, it’s your turn, I think.”

Alfred, after some hesitation, gave The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended, amid the jealous murmurs of his friend.

“That’s a nevenin nymn, fat-’ead,” cried Jerry in a loud whisper.

“I don’t care if it is,” answered Alf stoutly.  “It’s nice.”

“’E likes it because it makes him cry,” jeered Stanley.

The girl started to play, her back to the congregation.

They sang two verses with round mouths, Jerry and Stanley shouting against each other aggressively and wagging their heads.  The third verse went less well.  There were interruptions.  The voices grew ragged.  Jerry spoke; somebody whistled; and the singing ran away into giggles.