"So I will," said young Lady Anstruthers, "if I have the money when they
are in such awful trouble. Suppose we lost everything in the world and
there were people who could easily help us and wouldn't?"

"You and Sir Nigel--that is quite different," said Mrs. Brent. "I am
afraid that if you do not discuss the matter and ask advice from your
husband and mother-in-law they will be very much offended."

"If I were doing it with their money they would have the right to be,"
replied Rosalie, with entire ingenuousness. "I wouldn't presume to do
such a thing as that. That wouldn't be right, of course."

"They will be angry with me," said the vicaress awkwardly. This queer,
silly girl, who seemed to see nothing in the right light, frequently
made her feel awkward. Mrs. Brent told her husband that she appeared to
have no sense of dignity or proper appreciation of her position.

The wife of the farmer, John Wilson, carried away the cheque, quite
stunned. She was breathless with amazement and turned rather faint with
excitement, bewilderment and her sense of relief. She had to sit down
in the vicarage kitchen for a few minutes and drink a glass of the thin
vicarage beer.

Rosalie promised that she would discuss the matter and ask advice
when she returned to the Court. Just as she left the house Mrs. Brent
suddenly remembered something she had forgotten.

"The Wilson trouble completely drove it out of my mind," she said. "It
was a stupid mistake of the postboy's. He left a letter of yours among
mine when he came this morning. It was most careless. I shall speak