of war.

"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way to
the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. "Far below poor Mr.
Grinham" (the late vicar).

"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd
never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of your
work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye."

"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well-
intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to sifting your
cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do
it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days,
unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the
sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, and 'tis such a
confusing thing to meet a gentleman at the door when ye are in the mess
o' washing."

"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the tranter.
"His meaning's good enough. Ay, your pa'son comes by fate: 'tis heads or
tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he
is, my sonnies, and thank God he's no worse, I suppose."

"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than
Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny musingly; "but I don't quite
like to say it."

"O no; there's nothing in that," said grandfather William.

"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in the
tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still.

"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled us
wi' a visit from year's end to year's end. You might go anywhere, do
anything: you'd be sure never to see him."

"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never entered
our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife--ay,
poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall!--that as she was such a'
old aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn't at all
expect her to come any more to the service."

"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns
o' Sundays. 'Confound ye,' says he, 'blare and scrape what ye will, but
don't bother me!'"

"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and
hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the
babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There's good
in a man's not putting a pa