“Well, I hope to the Lord you will!” said Mrs. Spruce with a sniffy “For it’s a chance in a ‘undred, comin’ straight out of the village to a first situation with, a lady like Miss Vancourt.  And I ’ope you’ll profit by it!  And if you ’adn’t taken the prize for needlework in the school, you wouldn’t ’ave ’ad it, so now you sees what good it does to serve your elders when you’re young.”  Here she turned to Bainton, who was standing disconsolately half in and half out of the kitchen doorway.  “I’m real sorry, Mr. Bainton, that you can’t see our lady, more ’specially as you wishes to give a message from Passon Walden himself—­but you jest go back and tell ’im ’ow it is;—­Miss Vancourt is restin’ and can’t be disturbed nohow.”

Bainton twirled his cap nervously in his hand.

“I s’pose no one couldn’t say to her quiet-like as ’ow the Five Sisters be chalked?—­”

Mrs. Spruce raised her fat hands with a gesture of dismay.

“Lor’ bless the man!” she exclaimed; “D’ye think we’re goin’ to worrit Miss Vancourt with the likes o’ that the very first evenin’ she’s set foot in ’er own ‘ouse?  Why, we dussn’t!  An’ that there great dog Plato lyin’ on guard outside ’er door!  I’ve ’ad enough to-day with peacocks’ feathers, let alone the Five Sisters!  Besides, Oliver Leach is agent ’ere, and what he says is sure to be done.  She won’t worry ’erself about it,—­and you may be pretty certain he won’t be interfered with.  You tell Passon Walden I’m real sorry, but it can’t be ’elped.”

Reluctantly, Bainton turned away.  He was never much disposed for a discussion with Mrs. Spruce,—­her mind was too illogical, and her tongue too persistent.  Her allusion to peacocks’ feathers was unintelligible to him, and he wondered whether ’anythink she’s been an’ took’ had gone to her head.  Anyway, his errand was foiled for the moment.  But he was not altogether disheartened.  He determined not to go back to Walden with his message quite undelivered.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” he said to himself.  “I’ll go and do a bit of shoutin’ to Spruce,—­deaf as he is, he’s more reasonable-like than his old ’ooman!”

With this resolve, he went his way by a short-cut through Abbot’s Manor gardens to a small thatched shelter in the woods, known as ‘the foresters’ hut,’ where Spruce was generally to be found at about sunset, smoking a peaceful pipe, alone and well out of his wife’s way.

Meanwhile, Maryllia Vancourt, lying wide awake on her bed in the long unused room that was to have been her mother’s, experienced various chaotic sensations of mingled pleasure and pain.  For the first time in her life of full womanhood she was alone,—­ independent,—­free to come or go as she listed, with no one to gainsay her wishes, or place a check on her caprices.  She had deliberately thrown off her aunt’s protection; and with that action, had given up the wealth and luxury with which she had been lavishly surrounded ever since her father’s