in which the spirit of barter was to be
discerned by knowing eyes. But none such
took note of Marian's childhood. The
illumination of love is rather dazzling than
searching in the case of mothers of Mrs.
Ashurst's class, and she was dazzled.
Marian was perfection in her eyes, and at
an age at which the inversion of the
relations between mother and daughter,
common enough in later life, would have
appeared to others unreasonable, preposterous,
Mrs. Ashurst surrendered herself
wholly, happily, to the guidance and the
care of her daughter. The inevitable self-
assertion of the stronger mind took place,
the inevitable submission of the weaker.
In this instance, a gentle, persuasive,
unconscious self-assertion, a joyful yielding,
without one traversing thought of humiliation
or deposition.

Her daughter was so clever, so helpful,
so grave, so good, her economy and
management—surely they were wonderful in
so young a girl, and must have come to her
by instinct?—rendered life such a different,
so much easier a thing, delicate as she was,
and requiring so disproportionate a share of
their small means to be expended on her,
that it was not surprising Mrs. Ashurst
should see no possibility of evil in the origin
of such qualities.

As for Marian's father, he was about as
likely to discover a comet or a continent as
to discern a flaw in his daughter's moral
nature. The child, so longed for, so fervently
implored, remained always, in her
father's sight, Heaven's best gift to him;
and he rejoiced exceedingly, and wondered
not a little, as she developed into the girl
whom we have seen beside his death-bed.
He rejoiced because she was so clever, so
quick, so ready, had such a masterly mind
and happy faculty of acquiring knowledge;
knowledge of the kind he prized and reverenced;
of the kind which he felt would
remain to her, an inheritance for her life.
He wondered why she was so strong, for
he knew she did not take the peculiar kind
of strength of character from him or from
her mother.

It was not to be wondered at that these
peculiarities of Marian Ashurst were
noticed by the inhabitants of the village
where she was born, and where her
childish days had been passed; but it was
remarkable that they were regarded with
anything but admiration. For a keen
appreciation of money, and an unfailing
determination to obtain their money's worth,
had long been held to be eminently
characteristic of the denizens of Helmingham.
The cheese-factor used to declare that the
hardest bargains throughout his county
connexion were those which Mrs. Croke,
and Mrs. Whicher, and, worst of all, old
Mrs. M'Shaw (who, though Helmingham
born and bred, had married Sandy M'Shaw,
a Scotch gardener, imported by old Squire
Creswell) drove with him. Not the very
best ale to be found in the cellars of the
Lion at Brocksopp (and they could give
you a good glass of ale, bright, beaming,
and mellow, at the Lion, when they chose),
not the strongest mahogany-coloured
brandy-and- water, mixed in the bar by the
fair hands of Miss Parkhurst herself, not
even the celebrated rum-punch, the recipe
of which, like the songs of the Scandinavian
scalds, had never been written out,
but had descended orally to old Tilley, the
short, stout, rubicund landlord—had ever
softened the heart of a Helmingham farmer
in the matter of business, or induced him to
take a shilling less for a quarter of wheat,
or a truss of straw, than he had originally
made up his mind to sell it at.

"Canny Helmingham," was its name
throughout the county, and its people
were proud of it. Mr. Frampton, an earnest
clergyman who had succeeded the old rector,
had been forewarned of the popular prejudice,
and on the second Sunday of his
ministry addressed his parishioners in a
very powerful and eloquent discourse upon
the wickedness of avarice and the folly of
heaping up worldly riches; after which,
seeing that the only effect his sermon had
was to lay him open to palpable rudeness,
he wisely concentrated his energies on his
translation of Horace's Odes (which has
since gained him such great renown, and
of which at least forty copies have been
sold), and left his parishioners' souls to take
care of themselves. But however canny
and saving they might be, and however
sharply they might battle with the cheese-
factor, and look after the dairymaid, as
behoved farmers' wives in these awful days
of free trade (they had a firm belief in
Helmingham that "Cobden," under which
generic name they understood it, was a kind
of pest, as is the smut in wheat, or the tick
in sheep), all the principal dames in the
village were greatly shocked at the unnatural
love of money which it was impossible
to help noticing in Marian Ashurst.

"There was time enow to think o' they
things, money and such like fash, when
pipple was settled down," as Mrs. Croke
said, "but to see children hardenin' their