tta's part to attend the
"papish" chapel ten miles away, began to plot for her soul. His own life
was in the little Methodist chapel to which he walked four miles every
Sunday, wet or fine. In the summer he had accompanied the minister and
one or two class leaders in a drive through the hayfields, shouting to
the haymakers--"We're going to heaven!--won't you come with us!"--and he
had been known to spend five hours at a stretch on his knees wrestling
for the salvation of a drunken friend, in the village of Threlkeld. But
Netta baffled him. Sometimes he would come home from chapel, radiant,
and would take her a bunch of holly for the table by way of getting
into conversation with her. "It was _fine_ to-day, Missis! There was
three found peace. And the congregation was grand! There was four
attorneys--two of 'em from as far as Pengarth." And he would lend her
tracts--and even offer, good man, to borrow a "shandrey" from a
neighbour, and drive her himself to the chapel service. But Netta only
smiled or yawned at him; and as for the tracts, she hid them under the
few sofa cushions the house possessed.

Mr. Tyson, the agent, came to the house as seldom as he could, that he
might not quarrel with his employer before it was to his own interest to
do so. Netta discovered that he pitied her; and once or twice, drawing on
the arts of flirtation, with which the Florentine woman is always well
acquainted, she complained to him of her loneliness and her husband's
unkindness. But his north-country caution protected him from any
sentimentalizing, however innocent. And before the end of the winter
Netta detested him. Meanwhile she and Anastasia lived for one hope only.
From many indications it was plain that Melrose was going south in March.
The women were determined not to stay behind him. But, instinctively,
they never raised the subject, so as not to risk a struggle prematurely.

Meanwhile Melrose passed a winter wholly satisfactory to himself. The
partial unpacking of his collections was an endless source of amusement
and pleasure. But his curious egotism showed itself very plainly in the
business. He made no attempt at artistic arrangement, though there was
some classification. As fast as one room was filled--the vacant
packing-cases turned on their sides, serving to exhibit what they had
once contained--he would begin upon another. And woe to Mrs. Dixon or
Thyrza if they attempted any cleaning in one of his rooms! The
collection