notice of the letter she was blamed universally as having gone too far,
as if this chorus of subterranean condemnation might somehow reach the
Squire, who would know that the rest of his tenants had no hand in the
matter nor sympathy with the writer.

On the contrary, though she was secretive with her near acquaintances,
she would become greatly communicative with a casual vendor of books, or
even a vagrant to whom she had given a cup of tea, that English
equivalent for a cup of cold water. She was so fearful of falling behind
in sympathy with sinners that she fell into the unusual error of
treating them better than the saints. She was fond of doing small
generosities, especially to children, who were half afraid of her but
who would eat the big Victoria plums she gave them (leading them
stealthily round to the back of the house to do so), and recognize that
in some sedate and mysterious way they had a friend.

She would send presents to young people whose conduct had pleased her,
gifts which always excited surprise and sometimes derision. Once she
sent the substantial gift of a sack of potatoes to a young husband and
wife, but the present became chiefly an amusing recollection, because,
not having string, she had sewed the sack with darning-wool, with the
result that it burst open on the station platform before it reached its
destination.

A number of books, some of an old-fashioned theology, had been left to
Anne by an aunt who had had a son a Methodist preacher. This aunt had
also left her a black silk dress, which Anne had received with the
joyful exclamation that she knew she was really a king's daughter. The
books she read ardently and critically, underlining and marking, and
with them also she embarrassed the vicar to whom she lent them. He,