“Oh, Master Ernest,” said Susan, “why did you not come back when your poor papa and mamma wanted you?  I’m sure your ma has said to me a hundred times over if she has said it once that all should be exactly as it had been before.”

Ernest smiled to himself.  It was no use explaining to Susan why he smiled, so he said nothing.

“For the first day or two I thought she never would get over it; she said it was a judgement upon her, and went on about things as she had said and done many years ago, before your pa knew her, and I don’t know what she didn’t say or wouldn’t have said only I stopped her; she seemed out of her mind like, and said that none of the neighbours would ever speak to her again, but the next day Mrs Bushby (her that was Miss Cowey, you know) called, and your ma always was so fond of her, and it seemed to do her a power o’ good, for the next day she went through all her dresses, and we settled how she should have them altered; and then all the neighbours called for miles and miles round, and your ma came in here, and said she had been going through the waters of misery, and the Lord had turned them to a well.

“‘Oh yes, Susan,’ said she, ’be sure it is so.  Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, Susan,’ and here she began to cry again.  ‘As for him,’ she went on, ’he has made his bed, and he must lie on it; when he comes out of prison his pa will know what is best to be done, and Master Ernest may be thankful that he has a pa so good and so long-suffering.’

“Then when you would not see them, that was a cruel blow to your ma.  Your pa did not say anything; you know your pa never does say very much unless he’s downright waxy for the time; but your ma took on dreadful for a few days, and I never saw the master look so black; but, bless you, it all went off in a few days, and I don’t know that there’s been much difference in either of them since then, not till your ma was took ill.”

On the night of his arrival he had behaved well at family prayers, as also on the following morning; his father read about David’s dying injunctions to Solomon in the matter of Shimei, but he did not mind it.  In the course of the day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the second night after his arrival.  He knelt next Charlotte and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she should know for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and when he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious he emphasised the “truly.”  I do not know whether Charlotte noticed anything, but she knelt at some distance from him during the rest of his stay.  He assures me that this was the only spiteful thing he did during the whole time he was at Battersby.