demanded the astonished
Barbara.

"_Bon_!--Is it not the second part of the duty of a Christian woman to
love her neighbour as herself?"

"Good lack! 'tis not in human nature," said Barbara, bluntly. "If we be
no Christians short of that, there be right few Christians in all the
world, Mistress mine."

"So there be," was the reply. "Is it not?"

"Truly, good friend, this is not in nature," said Mrs Tremayne, gently.
"It is only in grace."

"Then in case it so be, is there no grace?" asked Barbara in a slightly
annoyed tone.

"Who am I, that I should judge?" was the meek answer. "Yet methinks
there must be less grace than nature."

"Well!--and of Mistress Rachel, what say you?"

"Have you a care that you judge her not too harshly. She is, I know,
somewhat forbidding on the outside, yet she hath a soft heart, Barbara."

"I am thankful to hear the same, for I had not so judged," was Barbara's
somewhat acrid answer.

"Ah, she showeth the worst on the outside."

"And for the childre? I love not yon Lucrece.--Now, Mistress Rose, have
a care your cakes be well mingled, and snub not me."

"Ah! there spake the conscience," said Mrs Rose, laughing.

"I never did rightly understand Lucrece," answered her daughter. "For
Margaret, she is plain and open enough; a straightforward, truthful
maiden, that men may trust. But for Lucrece--I never felt as though I
knew her. There is that in her--be it pride, be it shamefacedness, call
it as you will--that is as a wall in the way."

"I call it deceitfulness, Thekla," said her mother decidedly.

"I trust not so, Mother! yet I have feared--"

"Time will show," said Mrs Rose, filling her moulds with the compound
which was to turn out _pain d'epices_.

"Mistress Blanche, belike, showeth not what her conditions shall be,"
remarked Barbara.

"She is a lovesome little maid as yet," said Mrs Tremayne. "Mefeareth
she shall be spoiled as she groweth toward womanhood, both with praising
of her beauty and too much indulging of her fantasies."

"And now, what say you to Master Jack?" demanded Barbara in some
trepidation. "Is he like to play ugsome [ugly, disagreeable] tricks on
Mrs Clare, think you?"

"Jack--ah, poor Jack!" replied Mrs Tremayne.

Barbara looked up in some surprise. Jack seemed to her a most unlikely
subject for the compassionate ejaculation.

"And dost thou marvel that I say, `Poor Jack'? It is because I have
known men of his conditions aforetime