the
Ladies Cullen had developed an inordinate passion for the conversion of
souls. They had started a school of their own in opposition to the
National school, which was under the direction of the priest, and to
persuade the peasants to read the Bible and to eat bacon on Friday, were
good works that could not be undertaken without funds; and these were
obtained, it was said, by the visits of the Ladies Cullen to Brookfield.

Mrs. Gould declared she could estimate to a fraction the prosperity of
Protestantism in the parish by the bows these ladies exchanged with Mrs.
Barton when their carriages crossed on the roads.

'Here are the saffron buns at last, my dear children;' and Mrs. Barton
pressed them upon her girls, saying that Milord had brought them from
Dungory Castle especially for them. 'Take a bottom piece, Olive, and
Alice, you really must. . . Well, if you won't eat, tell Milord about your
play of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. Arthur, tell me, how did you
like the play, and how did the nuns like it? To think of my daughter, so
prim and demure, writing a play, and on such a subject.'

'But, mamma, what is there odd in the subject? We all know the old
ballad.'

'Yes, we all know the ballad,' Arthur answered; 'I sing stanzas of it to
the guitar myself.' He began to chant to himself, and Mrs. Barton
listened, her face slanted in the pose of the picture of Lady Hamilton;
and Milord rejoiced in the interlude, for it gave him opportunity to
meditate. Anna (Mrs. Barton) seemed to him more charming and attractive
than he had ever seen her, as she sat in the quiet shadow of the
verandah: beyond the verandah, behind her, the autumn sunshine fell
across the shelving meadows. A quiet harmony reigned over Brookfield.
The rooks came flapping home through the sunlight, and when Arthur had
ceased humming Mrs. Barton said:

'And now, my dear children, if you have finished your tea, come, and I
will show you your room.'

She did not leave the verandah, however, without paying a pretty
compliment to Milord, one that set him thinking how miserable his life
would have been with his three disagreeable daughters if he had not
fallen in with this enchantment. He remembered that it had lasted for
nearly twenty years, and it was as potent as ever. In what did it
consist, he asked himself. He sometimes thought her laughter too
abundant, sometimes it verged on merriment. He did not like to think of
Anna as a merry woman; he prefe