Laura, supposed to be deep in her book, but really all ears, learnt that, surprisingly, Miss Ellison, the great Miss Ellison, had her troubles. She had a brother, reputed wild in the parish, whom her father had forbidden the house, and much of their talk was about “my brother Robert,” or “Master Bobbie,” and the length of time since his last letter, and whether he had gone to Brazil, as he had said he should, or whether he was still in London. “What I feel, Emma, is that he is such a boy, and you know what the world is—what perils—” Then Emma’s cheerful rejoinder: “Don’t you worry yourself, Miss Margaret. He can look after himself all right, Master Bob can.”

Sometimes Emma would venture to admire something Miss Margaret was wearing. “Excuse me, Miss Margaret, but that mauve muslin really does become you;” and Miss Ellison would look pleased. She had probably few compliments, for one of her type was not likely to be admired in those days of pink and white dollishness, although her clear, healthy pallor, with only the faintest flush of pink, her broad white brow, grey eyes, and dark hair waving back to the knot at her nape were at least distinguished looking. And she could not at that time have been more than thirty, although to Laura she seemed quite old, and the hamlet women called her an old maid.

Such a life as hers must have been is almost unimaginable now. Between playing the harmonium in church, teaching in Sunday school, ordering her father’s meals and overseeing the maids, she must have spent hours doing needlework. Coarse, unattractive needlework, too, cross-over shawls and flannel petticoats for the old women, flannel shirts and long, thick knitted stockings for the old men, these, as well as the babies’ print frocks, were all made by her own hands. Excepting a fortnight’s visit a year to relatives, the only outing she was known to have was a weekly drive to the market town, shopping, in her father’s high, yellow-wheeled dogcart, with the fat fox-terrier, Beppo, panting behind.