was in her arms, and two small creatures clung crying to her skirts.

"We've worked hard," she wept; "we have, ma'am. Father, he's always been
steady, an' up early an' late. P'r'aps it's the Lord's 'and, as you
say, ma'am, but we've been decent people an' never missed church when we
could 'elp it--father didn't deserve it--that he didn't."

She was heartbroken in her downtrodden hopelessness. Rosalie literally
quaked with sympathy. She poured forth her pity in such words as the
poor woman had never heard spoken by a great lady to a humble creature
like herself. The villagers found the new Lady Anstruthers' interviews
with them curiously simple and suggestive of an equality they could
not understand. Stornham was a conservative old village, where the
distinction between the gentry and the peasants was clearly marked. The
cottagers were puzzled by Sir Nigel's wife, but they decided that she
was kind, if unusual.

As Rosalie talked to the farmer's wife she longed for her father's
presence. She had remembered a time when a man in his employ had lost
his all by fire, the small house he had just made his last payment upon
having been burned to the ground. He had lost one of his children in
the fire, and the details had been heartrending. The entire Vanderpoel
household had wept on hearing them, and Mr. Vanderpoel had drawn a
cheque which had seemed like a fortune to the sufferer. A new house
had been bought, and Mrs. Vanderpoel and her daughters and friends had
bestowed furniture and clothing enough to make the family comfortable to
the verge of luxury.

"See, you poor thing," said Rosalie, glowing with memories of this
incident, her homesick young soul comforted by the mere likeness in the