know what's the matter," his wife said, undismayed by his
anger. "Give me your light, and let me go and see."

"You can go where you like, wench, and see what you can; and an uncommon
deal wiser you'll be for your trouble."

And yet, although Mr. Whitelaw gave his wife the candlestick with an air
of profound indifference, there was an uneasy look in his countenance
which she could plainly see, and which perplexed her not a little.

"Come, Mrs. Tadman," she said decisively, "we had better see into this.
It was a woman's voice, and must have been one of the girls, I suppose.
It may be nothing serious, after all,--these country girls scream out for
a very little,--but we'd better get to the bottom of it."

Mr. Whitelaw burst into a laugh--and he was a man whose laughter was as
unpleasant as it was rare.

"Ay, my wench, you'd best get to the bottom of it," he said, "since
you're so uncommon clever. Me and my friend will go back to the parlour,
and take a glass of grog."

The gentleman whom Mr. Whitelaw honoured with his friendship had stood a
little way apart all this time, wiping his forehead with a big orange
coloured silk handkerchief. That blow upon his shin must have been rather
a sharp one, if it had brought that cold sweat out upon his ashen face.

"Yes," he muttered; "come along, can't you? don't stand cawing here all
night;" and hurried downstairs before his host.

It had been all the business of a couple of minutes. Ellen Whitelaw and
Mrs. Tadman went down to the ground floor by another staircase leading
directly to the kitchen. The room looked comfortable enough, and the two
servant-girls were sitting at a table near the fire. One was a strapping
rosy-cheeked country girl, who did all the household work; the other an
overgrown clumsy-looking girl, hired straight from the workhouse by Mr.
Whitelaw, from economical motives; a stolid-looking girl, whose intellect
was of the lowest order; a mere zoophyte girl, one would say--something
between the vegetable and animal creation.

This one, whose name was Sarah Batts, was chiefly employed in the
poultry-yard and dairy. She had a broad brawny hand, which was useful for
the milking of cows, and showed some kind of intelligence in the
management of young chickens and the treatment of refractory hens.

Martha Holden, the house-servant, was busy making herself a cap as her
mistress came into the kitchen, droning some Hampshire ballad by way of
accompaniment to her