they were expected to set off homewards;
at any rate, no more liquor was given them.
The tenants one and all called her "Madam;"
for they recognised in her the married
heiress of the Hanburys, not the widow of a
Lord Ludlow, of whom they and their
forefathers knew nothing; and against whose
memory, indeed, there rankled a dim
unspoken grudge, the cause of which was
accurately known to the very few who
understood the nature of a mortgage, and were
therefore aware that Madam's money had
been taken to enrich my lord's poor land in
Scotland. I am sure—for you can understand
I was behind the scenes as it were, and
had many an opportunity of seeing and hearing,
as I lay or sate motionless in my lady's
room, with the double doors open between it
and the ante-room beyond, where Lady Ludlow
saw her steward, and gave audience to
her tenants,—I am certain, I say, that Mr.
Horner was silently as much annoyed at the
money that was swallowed up by this mortgage
as anyone; and some time or other he
had probably spoken his mind out to my
lady; for there was a sort of offended
reference on her part, and respectful submission
to blame on his, while every now and then
there was an implied protest,—whenever the
payments of the interest became due, or
whenever my lady stinted herself of any
personal expense, such as Mr. Horner thought
was only decorous and becoming in the
heiress of the Hanburys. Her carriages
were old and cumbrous, wanting all the
improvements which had been adopted by those
of her rank throughout the county. Mr.
Horner would fain have had the ordering of
a new coach. The carriage-horses, too, were
getting past their work; yet all the
promising colts bred on the estate were sold for
ready money; and so on. My lord, her son,
was ambassador at some foreign place; and
very proud we all were of his glory and
dignity; but I fancy it cost money, and my lady
would have lived on bread and water sooner
than have called upon him to help her in
paying off the mortgage, although he was
the one who was to benefit by it in the end.

Mr. Horner was a very faithful steward,
and very respectful to my lady; although
sometimes, I thought, she was sharper to
him than to anyone else; perhaps because
she knew that, although he never said
anything, he disapproved of the Hanburys being
made to pay for the Earl Ludlow's estates
and state.

The late lord had been a sailor, and had
been as extravagant in his habits as most
sailors are, I am told, for I never saw the
sea; and yet he had a long sight to his own
interests; but whatever he was, my lady
loved him and his memory, with about as
fond and proud a love as ever wife gave
husband, I should think.

For a part of his life Mr. Horner, who was
born on the Hanbury property, had been a
clerk to an attorney in Birmingham; and
these few years had given him a kind of
worldly wisdom, which, though always
exerted for her benefit, was antipathetic to
her ladyship, who thought that some of her
steward's maxims savoured of trade and
commerce. I fancy that if it had been possible,
she would have preferred a return to the
primitive system, of living on the produce of
the land, and exchanging the surplus for such
articles as were needed, without the
intervention of money.

But Mr. Horner was bitten with new-
fangled notions, as she would say, though his
new-fangied notions were what folk at the
present day would think sadly behind-hand;
and some of Mr. Gray's ideas fell on Mr.
Horner's mind like sparks on tow, though
they started from two different points. Mr.
Horner wanted to make every man useful and
active in this world, and to direct as much
activity and usefulness as possible to the
improvement of the Hanbury estates, and
the aggrandisement of the Hanbury family,
and therefore he fell into the new cry for
education.

Mr. Gray did not care much,—Mr.
Horner thought not enough,—for this world,
and where any man or family stood in their
earthly position; but he would have every
one prepared for the world to come, and
capable of understanding and receiving
certain doctrines, for which latter purpose,
it stands to reason, he must have heard of
these doctrines; and therefore Mr. Gray
wanted education. The answer in the
catechism that Mr. Horner was most fond
of calling upon a child to repeat, was that to,
"What is thy duty towards my neighbour?"
The answer Mr. Gray liked best to hear
repeated with unction, was that to the question,
" What is the inward and spiritual
grace? " The reply to which Lady Ludlow
bent her head the lowest, as we said our
catechism to her on Sundays, was to, " What
is thy duty towards God? " But neither
Mr. Horner nor Mr. Gray had heard many
answers to the catechism as yet.

Up to this time there was no Sunday-
school in Hanbury. Mr. Gray's desires were
bounded by that object. Mr. Horner looked
farther on; he hoped for a day-school at
some future time, to train up intelligent
labourers for working on the estate. My
lady would hear of neither one nor the
other; indeed, not the boldest man whom
she ever saw, would have dared to name
the project of a day-school within her
hearing.

So Mr. Horner contented himself with
quietly teaching a sharp, clever lad to read and
write, with a view to making use of him as
a kind of foreman in process of time. He
had his pick of the farm-lads for this purpose,
and, as the brightest and sharpest, although
by far the raggedest and dirtiest, singled
out Job Gregson's son. But all this—as my