ne."

"Of course it would; I beg your pardon." (Here a little "homage to
virtue" on both our parts!)

"She knew how far she could go; she knew when I must say 'Stop!' She
never put me to it--though I must say she went very near the line
sometimes. She came to us very raw, too, with really no idea of what was
ladylike. What those Smalls can have been like! You see what she is now.
I don't think I did so badly."

I saw what she was now--or some of it. And I seemed to see it all
growing up in that country rectory--the raw girl from the Smalls (those
deplorable Smalls!) at Cheltenham, learning her youthful lessons in
diplomacy--how far one can go, where one must stop, how keen a bargain
can be struck with Authority. Chat had been Authority then. There was
another now. Yet where the difference in principle?

"I can't have managed so very badly, because they were all
broken-hearted to lose me--I often think how they can be getting
on!--and here I am with Jenny! Well, poor Chat would have had to go
soon, anyhow. They were all growing up. That time comes. It must be so
in my profession, Mr. Austin. Indispensable to-day, to-morrow you're not
wanted!"

"That sounds sad. You must be glad, in the end, that you didn't stay?"

"It'll be the same here some day. For all you or I know, it might be
to-morrow. The only thing is to suit as long as we can, and to put by a
little."

I vowed--within my breast--that henceforth Chat's little foibles--or
defenses?--her time-serving, her cowardice, her flutters, her judgment
of Jenny's concerns from a point of view not primarily Jenny's, her
encroachments on the port and other stolen (probably transient!)
luxuries--all these should meet with gentle and sympathetic
appraisement. She was only trying to "suit"--and meanwhile to put by a
little. But I was not sure what she had done, or helped to do, to Jenny,
nor that her ex-pupil's best course would not lie in presenting her with
her _conge_ and a substantial annuity.

An invitation came from Fillingford in which Chat and I were courteously
included. Jenny, however, found work for poor Chat at home (alas, for
the days of Authority!) and made me drive her over in the dog-cart. As
we drove in at the gates, she asked suddenly, "How am I to behave?"

"Don't look at anything as if you wanted to buy it," was the best
impromptu advice I could hit on.

"I might do it tactfully! Don't you remember what my father said?--'You
may succeed in your w