st ten is
the Lord's time--or so it used to be when I was a girl."

"And a very good time too! Gives you the chance of getting home and
seeing to the dinner properly after chapel. At least, that is to say, if
the minister leaves off when he's finished, which is more than you can
say of all of them; if he doesn't, there's a bit of a scrimmage to get
the dinner cooked in time even now, unless you go out before the last
hymn. And I never hold with that somehow; it seems like skimping the
Lord's material, as you may say."

"So it does. It looks as if the cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches had choked the good seed in a body's heart."

"In which case it looks what it is not," said Mrs. Bateson; "for nine
times out of ten it means nothing worse than wanting to cook the
potatoes, so as the master sha'n't have no cause for grumbling, and to
boil the rice so as it sha'n't swell in the children's insides. But
that's the way with things; folks never turn out to be as bad as you
thought they were when you get to know their whys and their wherefores;
and many a poor soul as is put down as worldly is really only anxious to
make things pleasant for the master and the children."

"Miss Elisabeth's mourning is handsome, I don't deny," said Mrs. Hankey,
reverting to a more interesting subject than false judgments in the
abstract; "but she don't look well in it--those pale folks never do
justice to good mourning, in my opinion. It seems almost a pity to waste
it on them."

"Oh! I don't hold with you there. I think I never saw anybody look more
genteel than Miss Elisabeth does now, bless her! And the jet trimming on
her Sunday frock is something beautiful."

"Eh! there's nothing like a bit of jet for setting off crape and
bringing the full meaning out of it, as you may say," replied Mrs.
Hankey, in mollified tones. "I don't think as you can do full justice to
crape till you put some jet again' it. It's wonderful how a bit of good
mourning helps folks to bear their sorrows; and for sure they want it in
a world so full of care as this."

"They do; there's no doubt about that. But I can't help wishing as Miss
Elisabeth had got some bugles on that best dress of hers; there's
nothing quite comes up to bugles, to my mind."

"There ain't; they give such a finish, as one may say, being so
rich-looking. But for my part I think Miss Elisabeth has been a bit
short with the crape, considering that Miss Farringdon was father an