s as low as possible. "Failure would be
ruin," he impressed on us, and he thought we ought to live on the
profits of the farm, except what was directly spent on the boy, and to
save the income of the agency. (Taking one year with another, we did
so.)

So he gave up his own dear old Cid, and only used the same horses that
had sufficed for our predecessor--a most real loss and deprivation--and
he chose to take meals at the long table in the keeping-room with the
farm servants. He said we girls might dine in our little parlour
apart, but there was no bearing that, and the whole household dined and
supped together. Breakfast was at such uncertain times that we left
that for the back kitchen, and had our own little round table by the
fire, or in the parlour, at half-past seven; and so we took care to
have a good cup of coffee for Fulk when he came in about five or six;
but the half-past twelve dinner and eight o'clock supper were at the
long table, our three selves and Baby at the top--Baby between me and
Mrs. Rowe ("Ally's Rowe," as he called her), then George and Susan
Sisson opposite each other, the under nurse, the two maids, the hind,
and the three lads.

I believe it was a very awful penance to them at first. We used to
hear them splashing away at the pump and puffing like porpoises; and
they came in with shining faces and lank hair in wet rats' tails, the
foremost of which they pulled on all occasions of sitting down, getting
up, or being offered food.

But they always behaved very well, and the habit of the animal at
feeding-time is so silent that I believe the restraint was compensated
by the honour; and it did civilise them, thanks, perhaps, to Susan's
lectures on manners, which we sometimes overheard.

Fulk made spasmodic attempts to talk to Sisson; but the chief
conversation was Jaquetta's. She went on merrily all dinner-time,
asking about ten thousand things, and hazarding opinions that elicited
amusement in spite of ourselves: as when she asked, what sheep did with
their other two legs, or suggested growing canary seed, as sure to be a
profitable crop. Indeed, I think she had a little speculation in it on
her own account in the kitchen garden--only the sparrows were too many
for her--and what they left would not ripen.

But the child was always full of some new and rare device, rattling on
anyhow, not for want of sense, but just to force a smile out of Fulk
and keep us all alive, as she called it.