hen
anything had to be done, was always the one to be followed, and without
her the church restoration would never have been such a success.
Eastthorpe, like Mrs. Colston, often marvelled that Butcher should have
been so fortunate. It mostly knew everything about the antecedents of
everybody in the town, but Mrs. Butcher's were not so well known. She
came from Cornwall, she always said, and Cornwall was a long way off in
those days. Her maiden name was Treherne, and Mrs. Colston had been told
that Treherne was good Cornish. Moreover, soon after the marriage she
found on the table, when she called on Mrs. Butcher, a letter which she
could not help partly reading, for it lay wide open. All scruples were
at once removed. It had a crest at the top, was dated from Helston,
addressed Mrs. Butcher by a nickname, and was written in a most
aristocratic hand--so Mrs. Colston averred to her intimate friends. She
could not finish the perusal before Mrs. Butcher came into the room; but
she had read enough, and the doctor's elect was admitted at once without
reservation. Eastthorpe was slightly mistaken, but Mrs. Butcher's
history cannot be told here.

So much by way of digression on Eastthorpe society. Mrs. Furze carried
her point as usual. As for Catharine, she did not object, for there was
nothing in Eastthorpe attractive to her. The Limes, Abchurch, was the
"establishment" chosen. It was kept by the Misses Ponsonby, Abchurch
being a large village five miles farther eastward. It was a peculiar
institution. It was a school for girls, but not for little girls, and it
was also an educational home for young ladies up to one- or
two-and-twenty whose training had been neglected or had to be completed
beyond the usual limits. It was widely-known, and, as its purpose was
special, it had little or no competition, and consequently flourished.
Many parents who had become wealthy, and who hardily knew the manners and
customs of the class to which they aspired, sent their daughters to the
Limes. The Misses Ponsonby--Mrs Ponsonby and Miss Adela Ponsonby--were
of Irish extraction, and had some dim connection with the family of that
name. They also preserved in their Calvinistic evangelicalism a trace of
the Cromwellian Ponsonby, the founder of the race. There was a
difference of two years in the age of the two ladies, but no perceptible
difference in their characters. The same necessity to conceal or
suppress all individuality