ng, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce,
or apples, and various other things from time to time.

Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more
like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the
family.

It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to
watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about
it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt
to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.

Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of
mutton--anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus
of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and
cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea--the cups were
not large enough--and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter
what, Jearje ate steadily through it.

A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want
anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the
long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start,
without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing
with his burden.

There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of
the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful
as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time
to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good
master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was
not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.

Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken
table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away
the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be
itself again.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV.

BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
garret.

One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's