"Please, my lady, I always hearken when
I hear folk talking secrets; but I mean no
harm."

My poor lady sighed; she was not
prepared to begin a long way off in morals.
Honour was, to her, second nature, and she
had never tried to find out on what principle
its laws were based. So, telling the lad that
she wished to see Mr. Horner when he
returned from Warwick, she dismissed him
with a despondent look; he, meanwhile,
right glad to be out of the awful gentleness
of her presence.

"What is to be done?" said she, half to
herself and half to me. I could not answer,
for I was puzzled myself.

"It was a right word," she continued,
"that I used when I called reading and
writing 'edge-tools.' If our lower orders
have these edge-tools given to them, we shall
have the terrible scenes of the French
revolution acted over again in England. When I
was a girl, one never heard of the rights of
men, one only heard of the duties. Now
here was Mr. Gray, only last night, talking
of the right every child had to instruction.
I could hardly keep my patience with him,
and at length we fairly came to words; and
I told him I would have no such thing as a
Sunday-school (or a Sabbath-school, as he
calls it, just like a Jew) in my village."

"And what did he say, my lady?" I
asked; for the struggle that seemed now to
have come to a crisis, had been going on for
some time in a quiet way.

"Why, he gave way to temper, and said
he was bound to remember he was under the
Bishop's authority, not under mine; and
implied that he should persevere in his designs,
notwithstanding my expressed opinion."

"And your ladyship——" I half inquired.

"I could only rise and curtsey, and civilly
dismiss him. When two persons have arrived
at a certain point of expression on a subject,
about which they differ as materially as I do
from Mr. Gray, the wisest course, if they wish
to remain friends, is to drop the conversation
entirely and suddenly. It is one of the few
cases where abruptness is desirable."

I was sorry for Mr. Gray. He had been to
see me several times, and had heIped me to
bear my illness in a better spirit than I
should have done without his good advice and
prayers. And I had gathered, from little
things he said, how much his heart was set
upon this new scheme. I liked him so much,
and I loved and respected my lady so well,
that I could not bear them to be on the
cool terms to which they were constantly
getting. Yet I could do nothing but keep
silence.

I suppose my lady understood something
of what was passing in my mind; for, after a
minute or two, she went on:—

"If Mr. Gray knew all I know,—if he had
my experience, he would not be so ready to!
speak of setting up his new plans in
opposition to my judgment. Indeed"—she
continued, lashing herself up with her own
recollections, "times are changed, when the
parson of a village comes to beard the liege
lady in her own house. Why, in my
grandfather's days, the parson was family chaplain
too, and dined at the Hall every Sunday.
He was helped last, and expected to have
done first. I remember seeing him take up
his plate and knife and fork, and say, with
his mouth full all the time he was speaking:
'If you please, Sir Urian, and my Lady, I'll
follow the beef into the housekeeper's room;'
for, you see, unless he did so, he stood no
chance of a second helping. A greedy man,
that parson was, to be sure! I recollect his
once eating up the whole of some little bird
at dinner, and by way of diverting attention
from his greediness, he told how he had
heard that a rook soaked in vinegar and then
dressed in a particular way, could not be
distinguished from the bird he was then
eating. I saw by the grim look of my
grandfather's face that the parson's doing and
saying displeased him; and, child as I was, I
had some notion what was coming, when, as
I was riding out on my little, white pony,
by my grandfather's side, the next Friday,
he stopped one of the gamekeepers, and bade
him shoot one of the oldest rooks he could
find. I knew no more about it till Sunday,
when a dish was set right before the parson,
and Sir Urian said: 'Now, Parson Hemming,
I have had a rook shot, and soaked in
vinegar, and dressed as you described last
Sunday. Fall to, man, and eat it with as
good an appetite as you had last Sunday.
Pick the bones clean, or by——, no more
Sunday dinners shall you eat at my table!'
I gave one look at poor Mr. Hemming's face
as he tried to swallow the first morsel, and
make believe as though he thought it very
good; but I could not look again, for shame,
although my grandfather laughed, and kept
asking us all round if we knew what could
have become of the parson's appetite."

"And did he finish it?" I asked.

"O yes, my dear. What my grandfather
said was to be done, was done always. He
was a terrible man in his anger! But to
think of the difference between Parson
Hemming and Mr. Gray! or even of poor, dear
Mr. Mountford and Mr. Gray. Mr. Mountford
would never have withstood me as Mr.
Gray did!"

"And your ladyship really thinks that it
would not be right to have a Sunday-school?"
I asked, feeling very timid as I put the
question.

"Certainly not. As I told Mr. Gray, I
consider a knowledge of the Creed, and of the
Lord's Prayer, as essential to salvation; and
that any child may have whose parents bring
it regularly to church. Then there are the
Ten Commandments, which teach simple
duties in the plainest language. Of course, if
a lad is taught to read and write (as that