ce?"

"'Tis about two hundred miles, Charity."

For a moment Charity was silent. Then she said, "An't like you, Madam,
I'd fain go the first o' March."

Lady Louvaine was a little surprised, for she had given her servants a
month's notice, which would expire on the fifteenth of March. However,
if Charity preferred to be paid in time instead of money, that was her
own affair. She assented, and Charity, dropping another courtesy, left
the room.

Lady Louvaine's house in London had been obtained through the Earl of
Oxford, a distant cousin of her husband, in whose household her son
Walter had long before taken unwholesome lessons in fashion and
extravagance. The Earl, now in his grand climacteric, had outlived his
youthful frivolity, and though he had become a hard and austere man, was
yet willing to do a kindness to his kinsman's widow by engaging a house
for her, and offering for her grandson a squire's place which happened
to be vacant in his household. She would have preferred some less showy
and more solid means of livelihood for Aubrey, whose character was yet
unfixed, and whose disposition was lighter than she liked to see it: but
no other offered, and she accepted this.

A few days before the time for departure, up trudged Temperance
Murthwaite again.

"Madam," said she, "I'm something 'feared I'm as welcome as water into a
ship, for I dare guess you've enough to do with the hours, but truth to
tell, I'm driven to it. Here's Faith set to go after you to London."

"Poor child! let her come."

"I can get as far as `poor,' Madam, but I can go no further with you,"
answered Temperance grimly. "Somebody's poor enough, I cast no doubt,
but I don't think it's Faith. But you have not yet beheld all your
calamities. If Faith goes, I must go too--and if I go, and she, then
must Lettice."

"Dear Temperance, I shall be verily glad."

"Lady Lettice, you're too good for this world!--and there aren't ten
folks in it to whom I ever said that. Howbeit, you shall not lose by
me, for I purpose to take Rachel withal and she and I can do the
housework betwixt us, and so set Edith free to wait on you. Were you
thinking to carry servants, or find them there?"

"I thought to find one there. More than one, methinks, we can scarce
afford."

"Well then for that shall Rachel serve: and I'll work the cost of my
keep and more, you shall see. I can spin with the best, and weave too;
you'll never come short of linen n