Miss Desborough felt half inclined to be pleased with this, and yet half inclined to resent this possible snubbing of her future husband.  But they were nearing the village, and Miss Amelyn turned the conversation to the object of her visit.  It was a new village—­an unhandsome village, for all that it stood near one of the gates of the park.  It had been given over to some mines that were still worked in its vicinity, and to the railway, which the uncle of the present earl had resisted; but the railway had triumphed, and the station for Scrooby Priory was there.  There was a grim church, of a blackened or weather-beaten stone, on the hill, with a few grim Amelyns reposing cross-legged in the chancel, but the character of the village was as different from the Priory as if it were in another county.  They stopped at the rectory, where Miss Amelyn provided herself with certain doles and gifts, which the American girl would have augmented with a five-pound note but for Miss Amelyn’s horrified concern.  “As many shillings would do, and they would be as grateful,” she said.  “More they wouldn’t understand.”

“Then keep it, and dole it out as you like,” said Sadie quickly.

“But I don’t think that—­that Lord Beverdale would quite approve,” hesitated Miss Amelyn.

The pretty brow of her companion knit, and her gray eyes flashed vivaciously.  “What has he to do with it?” she said pertly; “besides, you say these are not his poor.  Take that five-pound note—­or—­I’ll double it, get it changed into sovereigns at the station, and hand ’em round to every man, woman, and child.”

Miss Amelyn hesitated.  The American girl looked capable of doing what she said; perhaps it was a national way of almsgiving!  She took the note, with the mental reservation of making a full confession to the rector and Lord Beverdale.

She was right in saying that the poor of Scrooby village were not interesting.  There was very little squalor or degradation; their poverty seemed not a descent, but a condition to which they had been born; the faces which Sadie saw were dulled and apathetic rather than sullen or rebellious; they stood up when Miss Amelyn entered, paying her the deference, but taking little note of the pretty butterfly who was with her, or rather submitting to her frank curiosity with that dull consent of the poor, as if they had lost even the sense of privacy, or a right to respect.  It seemed to the American girl that their poverty was more indicated by what they were satisfied with than what she thought they missed. It is to be feared that this did not add to Sadie’s sympathy; all the beggars she had seen in America wanted all they could get, and she felt as if she were confronted with an inferior animal.