two calamities. "I brought my cheque book with me because I meant to
help you. A man worked for my father had his house burned, just as yours
was, and my father made everything all right for him again. I'll make it
all right for you; I'll make you a cheque for a hundred pounds now, and
then when your husband begins to build I'll give him some more."

The woman gasped for breath and turned pale. She was frightened. It
really seemed as if her ladyship must have lost her wits a little. She
could not mean this. The vicaress turned pale also.

"Lady Anstruthers," she said, "Lady Anstruthers, it--it is too much. Sir
Nigel----"

"Too much!" exclaimed Rosalie. "They have lost everything, you know;
their hayricks and cattle as well as their house; I guess it won't be
half enough."

Mrs. Brent dragged her into the vicar's study and talked to her. She
tried to explain that in English villages such things were not done in
a manner so casual, as if they were the mere result of unconsidered
feeling, as if they were quite natural things, such as any human person
might do. When Rosalie cried: "But why not--why not? They ought to be."
Mrs. Brent could not seem to make herself quite clear. Rosalie only
gathered in a bewildered way that there ought to be more ceremony, more
deliberation, more holding off, before a person of rank indulged in
such munificence. The recipient ought to be made to feel it more, to
understand fully what a great thing was being done.

"They will think you will do anything for them."